Let’s end this “Collusion of Delusion”

“What’s sad about UK financial services in the last 10-15 years”, declares PATRICK WALDRON, “is that our industry isn’t learning the lessons from its customer scandals.” The Chief Executive of Post Office Financial Services talks to Sarah Perrin about the challenge of customer engagement.
Whether it’s endowment mortgages, life policy mis-selling or more recently payment protection insurance, as an industry we seem to have been in a collusion of delusion of the customer. Today, for example, we have many providers offering 0% balance transfers on credit cards for up to 24 months – but that’s not a credit card, it’s a debit card. It doesn’t make sense. We’re misleading customers –
when interest rates go up, all these offers will be withdrawn and some customers will be in real difficulty.
Another example is high regular saver rates that only pay the headline interest for one month’s deposit, though the customer thinks they are getting it for every month’s deposits.
Why isn’t the industry learning? I simply don’t believe customers are creating enough pressure for providers to get better. And here’s where I’m convinced there’s a role for us at the Post Office – as the customer’s champion, the people’s champion. And I think there is also a role for other new incumbents that believe in treating customers differently, such as Metro Bank.
The full published article is available in PDF format via the “Download” button above.