Air Academy members gain access to Comentis' financial vulnerability assessment tool
Later life lending platform Air has announced a partnership with tech provider Comentis to offer Air Academy members access to the latter’s financial vulnerability assessment tool.
With the impending implementation of Consumer Duty due to increase the focus on supporting vulnerable customers, Air said the tool could help advisers in better identifying, tracking, and helping these clients while at the same time documenting the steps they had taken.
The Comentis software will sit within the health section of WriteRoute – Air Sourcing’s fact find and suitability report function – and will be available for free to all academy members who have completed the new vulnerable customer module.
The technology enables advisers to evaluate a customer’s financial vulnerability across the four triggers defined by the Financial Conduct Authority, namely health events, life events, resilience, and capability. The tool can also help advisers understand the links between specific circumstances and their impact on the individual.
In addition, Comentis’s financial vulnerability assessment tool creates assessment reports that analyse the circumstances that could impact customers and identifies the measures advisers can take to support vulnerable customers in line with individual firm compliance frameworks.
Advisers who use the Comentis software will be able to demonstrate compliance with Consumer Duty through several different avenues, one of which is through documented outcomes that can be stored in WriteRoute.
“As the FCA Consumer Duty deadline approaches, it is essential that our members have the tools to correctly identify and support vulnerable customers while clearly documenting how good outcomes have been achieved,” commented Mike Taylor (pictured), managing director at Air Club.
“At Air, we understand that any legislative change can be a challenge and are committed to working with experts like Comentis to help our members carefully and successfully navigate through this process.”
Jonathan Barrett, chief executive and co-founder of Comentis, added that by working with the Air Group, their technology had made it possible for advisers to easily identify at-risk customers with minimal impact on their existing fact-finding procedures.
“With this integration, our goal is both to simplify and to normalise the process of assessing clients for signs of vulnerability,” Barrett said. “Not only would this ensure advisers are providing the best outcomes, but it would also mean they can rest easy in the knowledge they’ve exercised the appropriate due diligence about vulnerable customers.”
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