Responsible & Sustainable Investing

TISA has launched a Good Practice Guide intended to help firms understand their ESG reporting obligations under Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulations (SFDR). The guide will help ensure that disclosures are consistent, comparable and based on objective data, which will allow consumers to better understand and compare the products they are offered.

The guide uses examples and case studies to illustrate how firms might apply the requirements of the regulations and discusses the regulatory background that firms need to consider, including that of the FCA and Government. It uses the Investment Association’s terminology from its Responsible Investment Framework and discusses the Bridges Spectrum of Capital and analyses and compares the PRI framework. Impact Investing, UN Sustainable Development Goals Sustainability risk versus Adverse Impact, and Active ownership versus Stewardship are also discussed.

KickStart Money, the coalition of 20 savings and investment firms, won the Good Money Award at the Better Society’s 2020 award ceremony on the evening of Wednesday 2^nd December. The judges commented that the coalition evidenced “the fantastic collaboration taking place across the sectors to address a clear problem”.

KickStart was established through The Investing and Saving Alliance (TISA) in 2017 with a vision to ensure every primary aged child receives a high-quality and effective financial education. KickStart Money has contributed over £1 million to fund the delivery of financial education to over 18,000 primary school children, delivered by the charity MyBnk. The coalition has also funded three year-long evaluations of this programme that prove the benefits of financial education at a primary level.

The Better Society’s Awards are designed to recognise commercial companies which are helping create a better, more equal, ethical, and sustainable world for all.

Retirement

Having completed the research and report “Getting Retirement Right”, the Retirement Strategy Group are now working with industry to continue building support for the key conclusion, that the majority of UK households should be saving 12% of gross salary into their pension. We are keen to ensure consistency of this key recommendation being made to the DWP for consideration as part of future AE reviews.

Our work is now focused on agreeing how employees, employers and government might collectively increase contribution levels to hit this target.  This work includes considering options and potential timescales and we welcome TISA member to actively engage in the debate to shape the final recommendations.

Guidance

TISA has been a champion of enhancing the level of support that firms that provide to their customers using Financial Guidance. The key challenges are two fold.  Firstly, the boundary between guidance and advice can be ambiguous and subject to a consumers view of the service they have received.  Secondly, the guidance that can be provided does not align to a digital age where consumers expect a degree of personalisation to suggest options that are relevant to their situation.

TISA has been engaging with members, plus facilitating meetings with the FCA, HMT, DWP and MaPS to seek solutions that will enhance consumer financial wellbeing. Building upon the work and proposals already being promoted to government, TISA believes that Open Finance and Pension Dashboard will both require changes to the current guidance rules to enable levels of consumer support that align with the level of personalised data that will be made available in future financial propositions. 

Vulnerable Customers

The subject of Vulnerable Customers has seen significant recent elevation within the government’s agenda. The Working Group provides a forum for firms to discuss, develop and implement good market practice across the broad range of activities designed to support vulnerable customers.  This covers product design through to customer support services.

TISA has also worked with Altus to develop a Vulnerability Radar, that enables a firm to self-assess their internal process against good practice and identify opportunities to continually enhance supporting vulnerable customers.  This tool is already in use with over 100 firms and provides a platform for ongoing evolution of good practice through a combination of evaluation of aggregated results and the Working Group sharing experiences to further enhance services.