FCA reviews bereavement and PoA registration practices

The FCA has published a multi-firm review of how retail banks and building societies treat customers in financial difficulties, building on its previous review of life insurers’ bereavement claim processes.  It has found that many firms have made significant efforts to improve the ease with which they deal with customers wanting to register Powers of Attorney, register bereavements or generally needing support in a crisis. But some could still do better not least in terms of training staff on what they need to do in response to requests.

Key messages from the reviews are that firms:

• should make more use of electronic verification of death to minimise the need for sending Death Certificates;
• must respond flexibly to customers with vulnerability characteristics, such as using different channels or adapting their usual approach – and that staff should be able to recognise when to seek additional support;
• should consider how to meet the needs of consumers who need a third party to access their account and support them – specifically, in providing that person with as much support as the customer would get;
• should actively identify information that should trigger a concern of customer vulnerability (some firms are using AI to do this);
• should train staff to respond sensitively, especially when customers are noticeably upset;
• need to monitor customer behavioural patterns to check whether they are getting a good outcome – and monitor MI on, for instance, time taken to register PoAs;
• often do not allow attorneys to access accounts in as many ways as direct customers can, often for no reason except not having put resource towards it; and
• need to ensure their CRM systems are not fragmented such that customers have to repeat information when speaking to different staff members.