Analytics, data and automation are setting new standards for retail financial services. IFAs and mortgage brokers have been slower than many other industries to grab hold of data and use it to promote and protect themselves.
Take farming, where most tractors now are self steering to within 2 cm in the most remote locations, guided by satellite Take manufacturing, where no firm is likely to get past the mom-and-pop stage without first achieving multiple ISO standards first. In general retailing point of sale POS technology has transformed the customer experience. Cash only? Forget it.
Data is rapidly becoming key to the role of compliance directors. FCA repeatedly mention this, and while taking the foot off the neck of retail advisers, it is pushing down harder on clean data.
Compliance file checkers and predictive analytics can now assess standards, automate operations, and deliver trends that people cannot
match.
Data delivers insight. Data dashboards and AI-driven analysis provide continuous intelligence. Staff come and go, taking knowledge with them, but data is permanent. Decision-making has shifted from opinion to data-driven.
Compliance staff offering opinions are not about to lose their jobs. The new skills rest in asking the right questions, contextualizing findings, and translating the patterns into action. In short, data is leading and compliance is being forced to follow.
Firms that master data governance, analytics, and storytelling gain the edge In the modern financial advice practice, compliance follows the data, not the other way around.
Sources of FCA data concerns
https://www.fca.org.uk/news/press-releases/financial-regulator-finds-wholesale-data-market-can-be-improved
https://www.regulationtomorrow.com/eu/fca-sets-out-findings-from-its-review-of-how-benchmark-administrators-manage-data-risks
https://www.fca.org.uk/publications/newsletters/market-watch-81
https://www.fca.org.uk/publications/multi-firm-reviews/data-quality-controls-benchmarks-sector