Financial support services provider, MorganAsh, has announced the launch of a new consumer vulnerability assessment tool.

By providing an objective “resilience rating” similar to a credit score, the new tool simplifies evaluating consumer vulnerability.

The tool, called The MorganAsh Resilience System (MARS), has been designed to help both mortgage advisers and firms meet the FCA’s requirements for understanding and managing consumer vulnerability.

The FCA’s guidance for firms on the fair treatment of vulnerable customers came into force in February 2021 and will be strengthened by a new consumer duty paper, which is currently out for consultation.

MorganAsh managing director, Andrew Gething, said: “Just as a credit score is used to simply communicate wealth, MARS is used to communicate health and resilience. By using MARS, advisers and firms can simply enter their client’s details, and the tool does the rest. This enables them to focus on what they do best – delivering the best advice.”

MARS is the first system providing this type of rating and collates information from consumers and their advisers to calculate a comprehensive “resilience rating”. MorganAsh said that this will provide a “simple, objective, and consistent way” of managing consumer vulnerability.

The system can be used as a standalone tool or integrated with a firm’s CRM via secure API links. MARS is already integrated with systems from Intelliflo and Iress, with MorganAsh indicating that more integrations are planned.

Chief executive at the Association of Mortgage Intermediaries, Robert Sinclair, welcomed the launch of the tool and said that for firms to meet their requirements on vulnerability, they must “understand the characteristics of their customers”, and be able to “manage and report the conduct risk”.

“Firms’ progress to-date has largely been limited to subjective individual assessments which risk inconsistency and complexity in recording,” Sinclair said. “A move to more structured assessments that can provide consistent and objective data will provide management information that firms can utilise. The resilience rating within the MARS tool would appear to be a positive first step.”

Chair of the Financial Vulnerability Task Force, Keith Richards, added: “Given the often complex and technical nature of financial planning – which automatically places most people in a position of vulnerability because of knowledge and experience-based dependency – we must do what we can, at every opportunity, to demonstrate and be seen as a trusted ‘safe pair of hands’.

“The current regulatory focus on vulnerability provides a timely opportunity to improve how we can recognise and address vulnerable circumstances, whilst also demonstrating individual care and empathy. Good practice principles and the use of fintech, such as the MorganAsh MARS tool, can greatly improve our ability to assess, store and communicate vulnerability across and between organisations.”

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