Consumer Duty aims to set higher and clearer standards of consumer protection across financial services and requires all firms to act so they deliver good outcomes for their customers.
Meeting the Price and Value Consumer Duty outcome
Our newest enhancements to FE Analytics will directly support advisers in meeting the 'Price and Value' outcome, which is possibly the trickiest of the four outcomes to evidence. It requires advisers to complete fair value assessments of their advice services, and demonstrate that there is a reasonable relationship between the price paid for a product or service and the overall benefit a consumer receives from it.
These enhancements include new Value for Money fields from EMT v4.1 within fund factsheets (for funds distributed within the UK), as well as new Assessment of Value documents available within the fund documents - helping advisers to assess and evidence that recommended funds provide fair value to their clients.
Value for Money fields in fund factsheets
In addition to existing key MiFID data, we've added a brand new 'Value for Money' section of fields into a fund's factsheet. If the fund manager has provided the data, this information can be found within the 'MiFID Information' tab, and includes key value for money information, such as outcomes of Assessments of Value and Transaction Costs. The Assessment of Value fields consist of two fields: firstly, whether a mandatory COLL Assessment of Value is required for the fund, and the second field then displays the outcomes of the assessment, or of other optional assessments if COLL AOV is not mandatory and data is available.
Full details and field display conditions can be seen below:
- COLL Assessment of Value Required (Y/N)
- If yes: Outcome of COLL Assessment of Value UK
- If no: Outcome of PRIN Value Assessment or Review UK
- If no and PRIN not available: Other Review Related to Value and or Charges UK
- Transaction Costs Ex Ante UK – an estimate of costs before they are incurred shown as a percentage of the net asset value of the fund (using the UK calculation methodology)
- Transaction Costs Ex Post UK – actual costs after the event shown as a percentage of the net asset value of the fund (using the UK calculation methodology)
These fields will help you to quickly see whether a fund is meeting price and value requirements, enabling you to initially qualify new funds and assess existing investments at a glance.
Assessment of Value fund documents
If an Assessment of Value document is available, advisers will be able to access it using the 'Fund Documents' dropdown within the fund's factsheet. These are comprehensive documents provided by the fund managers to help advisers further assess and evidence that the fund provides fair value to the client. This provides clear benefit to advisers as it brings all the information into one place – saving you time and enabling a more thorough and efficient research process.
These enhancements have been made to ensure that we are comprehensively supporting advisers in meeting new Consumer Duty requirements. For more information on how we can help, visit our dedicated Consumer Duty page or request a demo.
