Consumer Duty: how wealth managers can meet alternatives challenge

Technology to play a key role

The outcomes-focused approach soon to be introduced by the consumer duty represents a sea change in the standard of care that firms are expected to provide to customers.

For some investment firms, particularly those with straightforward propositions and services, this newly raised regulatory bar should, while still presenting challenges, be cleared relatively comfortably. But for advisers and wealth managers dealing with alternative investments, life is about to get significantly more complicated. Meeting the duty of the duty The consumer duty makes clear that firms must take a holistic approach to addressing the needs of their retail customers. In an investment context, that means individual products or asset classes should feed into the processes tha...