Old Mutual Case Study

TCF has the main purpose of regulating the market conduct of financial services firms, promoting a culture of fair treatment of customers and regulating financial product design, marketing, information provided to customers, aspects of financial advice, after-sale support of consumers and the complaint procedure. As a financial services provider Old Mutual will be significantly impacted by the TCF regulation, which will also go a long way in supporting the strategic tilt towards being “customer-centric”

How this will affect delivery of Old Mutual services
Product Promotion and Marketing: Appropriate standards of conduct will be developed for: the marketing of products, the target market and product suitability, the minimum product information
advice on the termination of a financial product could be part of up-front product advice or on-going product advice. Client confusion as to what they should expect from their intermediaries will need to be avoided and customers need to be provided with on-going support post the initial sale. All staff dealing with complaints and claim handling need to deal promptly and fairly with legitimate customer expectations. Goodwill and compensation polices and customer satisfaction surveys on complaint resolution all need to be put in place. The company should undertake to identify common underlying causes of complaints and take action to eliminate the root cause.

RECOMMENDATIONS
Effectively and successfully implementing the TCF outcomes can enhance Old Mutual’ s competitive advantage over other companies that do not fully embrace the client-centred strategy as a key differentiator or which do not implement TCF with the same degree of success. The business will need to embedd TCF culture, defining fairness in a way which can be applied across all units.

If The TCF Requirements are not successfully implemented Old Mutual can lose traction in growing and retaining its client base. These issues could cause adverse financial and reputational consequences which could erode the benefits derived from advancing the strategy without fair treatment to
Not implementing TCF requirements can evoke financial penalties from the Financial Services Board. Any financial penalties or negative reports from the FSB will have an impact on the reputation of the business which could ultimately adversely affect its share