Simon Rogerson, co-founder and chief executive officer at Octopus Group, talks to Jayna Rana about the three ingredients needed to earn a customer's trust, how smaller companies are in most demand and why he is supporting his staff to start up their own businesses.
Lack of trust
But the biggest headwind for the industry according to Rogerson, and one that was the basis for the founding of Octopus, remains the lack of trust towards financial services.
He says there are three 'ingredients' that create trust - expertise, honesty and caring - and that the industry continues to fall down on all three.
He says: "This is the least trusted industry in the world and there is good reason for that. The way customers were - and still are - treated by the incumbents was terrible.
"They would design products they would not sell to their loved ones and then not even explain them clearly. If someone cannot understand you, how can they trust you?"
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Rogerson criticised the amount of jargon that is still prevalent, saying the industry continues to use it because "it wants to feel clever, it is hiding something or it still does not know what its customers need".
"Banks continue to be fined even after the Global Financial Crisis and when the regulator has to intervene, customers get even more nervous. A fundamental change is needed and that will come from a shift in power to the end customer," he adds.
"That is where we saw the opportunity and we still treat customers today as we did back on day one. We have always led at the front in terms of transparency, which is something a lot of companies will find difficult to cope with. But it is in our DNA."
