The financial services group seeks to identify and support vulnerable customers
Retirement specialist Just Group has partnered with clinical regulatory technology provider Comentis to better identify and support customers with characteristics of vulnerability.
The group believes Comentis’ digital cognitive assessment engine will help proactively identify at-risk customers through a clinically developed online process. The assessment provides a report on the nature of any vulnerability, how this impacts the customer and how Just Group can better support the customer’s needs.
HUB Group, sister company of Just Group, is also running a pilot with Comentis for its advisers in the lifetime mortgage market.
Just Group said vulnerability is high on the regulatory agenda, with the FCA highlighting the importance of financial services firms having a strong vulnerable customer strategy in place to assist their customers amid fears that more people will suffer from characteristics of vulnerability due to the cost-of-living crisis.
Read more: FCA directs lenders to support struggling consumers.
“The FCA estimates that as many as one in two adults may be at risk of financial vulnerability and this is likely to worsen over the winter as the cost-of-living crisis worsens and the recession starts to bite,” Jonathan Barrett, chief executive and co-founder of Comentis, said. “Identifying those who may be ‘at risk’ of poor outcomes is the very first and most important step towards ensuring they gain a positive experience and end-result.”
Barrett added that given the continued focus by the FCA on client circumstances within the new Consumer Duty guidance, firms will need to make sure they are adequately supporting their vulnerable clients.
“We are delighted that Just and HUB Group will be utilising our tech-powered service to go the extra mile in supporting vulnerable customers,” Barrett remarked.
Jenny Cadman, head of customer experience at Just Group, said they were delighted to be the first provider in the retirement income market to make use of Comentis’s software to help their customers.
“Supporting people with characteristics of vulnerability is an integral part of our customer service and this cutting-edge software will allow us to spot people who may be unaware of their vulnerability or are concerned about sharing it,” he explained. “It provides us with a clinically tested tool that allows us to identify vulnerable customers and, equally importantly, how we can best support them.”
