Consumer Duty
In July 2023, the Financial Conduct Authority introduced new regulations known as the Consumer Duty (“the Duty”), which are intended to raise standards of protection for retail customers across all areas of the financial industry.
The Duty requires asset management firms such as Artemis to monitor ‘customer outcomes’ – the goals and objectives that customers have when investing in an investment fund – throughout the time they have a relationship with the firms.
At Artemis, our aim has always been to offer exemplary performance and client service, putting the interests of our customers first.
The rules and obligations
The Financial Conduct Authority (‘FCA’) introduced a new principle:
“A firm must act to deliver good outcomes for retail customers”
with three overarching cross-cutting obligations that apply across all of a firm's operations and activities:
- acting in good faith
- avoiding foreseeable harm
- enabling and supporting customers to pursue their financial objectives
The principle obligates firms to achieve good outcomes for clients in the following four areas:
- Products and services
- Price and value
- Consumer understanding
- Consumer support
The Duty requires firms to consider the needs and objectives of retail customers, including those who display characteristics of vulnerability.
Under the Duty, firms should be open and honest, avoid harm and support their customers in pursuing their financial goals. This means retail customers should expect:
- Helpful and accessible customer support, so it’s as easy to sort out a problem or switch or cancel a product as it was to buy it in the first place.
- Timely and clear information retail customers can understand, allowing them to make good financial decisions. This means important information shouldn’t be buried in lengthy terms and conditions.
- Providers to offer products and services that are right for their customers, rather than pushing products and services they don’t need.
- Products and services to provide fair value. This should mean investors won’t be ripped-off or have to pay costs they didn’t expect. Customers may need to shop around.
- Firms to consider if customers may be in a vulnerable situation when dealing with them. This could be due to poor health or financial troubles, for instance.
- Where problems do arise, firms must have processes in place to resolve issues and complaints in a timely and proactive way.
As well as acting to deliver good customer outcomes, firms will need to provide evidence of how these outcomes are being met.
What Artemis is doing to meet the Duty
We have undertaken an extensive exercise to ensure Artemis is meeting all aspects of the Duty, in many cases reviewing existing processes and approaches and enhancing and extending them where necessary.
Key aspects of this include:
- Extending our twice-yearly investment market commentaries to provide broader information, updates and guidance to investors
- Adding a range of help and support information for investors on our website, to provide enhanced guidance and assistance across a broad range of topics
- Undertaking regular testing of our fund information and communications with investors to test and check the quality and understandability of them, and make any improvements resulting from findings
- Improving the ‘accessibility’ of our website for blind and visually-impaired customers
Artemis also publishes annually, every April, its Assessment of Value report which assesses the overall ‘value for money’ of the range of investment funds it manages.
Customer Outcome Statements
Artemis has defined a series of Customer Outcome Statements that the firm will adhere to in order to be satisfied that it is treating customers fairly, managing conduct risks effectively and in the context of retail customers, meeting the requirements and expectations of the Consumer Duty. Where monitoring highlights areas of potential concern, appropriate actions are taken to resolve.
| Outcome | Statement |
|---|---|
| (1) Products and Services | Products and services are designed to meet the needs, characteristics, and objectives of customers and are appropriately distributed in line with the target market assessment. Products perform as customers have been led to expect. |
| (2) Price & Value | Customers are provided with products and services that provide fair value. There is a fair relationship between the price paid for Artemis’ products and services and the overall benefits customers receive. |
| (3) Customer understanding |
Customers receive communications they can understand which are fair, clear, and not misleading. They receive information that enables them to be confident they are making effective, timely and properly informed decisions. |
| (4) Customer Support | Customers, including those with characteristics of vulnerability, receive the support they need when they need it. They receive the level of service they have been led to expect and do not face unnecessary barriers in relation to investing, making changes to their investments, selling their investments, or making a complaint. This includes where Artemis services are provided using an outsourced arrangement. |
For more information
We welcome feedback and suggestions from our customers on any aspect of our funds and services. Please contact our Investor Support Centre with any questions:
- By email: [email protected]. We will respond within four business days – but please be careful about your personal information as email is not a secure form of communication
- By telephone: 0800 092 2051 (business days 8am to 6pm) or from outside the UK +44 1133 604500
- By post: Artemis Fund Managers Limited, Sunderland, SR43 4BH