In the Spotlight with Paul Glynn, Air

FR: Air is an interesting proposition, why did you join the team?

PG: Having worked for a variety of providers across my career, the one thing that really struck me was the important role that platforms like Air play. They bridge the gap between lenders and advisers – helping them to work together for the benefit of the customer.

Air takes this a step further by helping advisers to add value to their business through accredited training, innovative marketing support and smart technology designed to improve advice outcomes. Fundamentally, we challenge the market to be better and help to reward those who step up to this challenge which makes Air fairly unique and an exciting organisation to lead.

FR: Consumer Duty is a significant piece of legislation and will no doubt mean the industry has to make some changes. How do you envision it changing the market?

PG: Anyone running a business knows that it can be easy to get bogged down in the day-to-day challenges so what this legislation and later life lending’s growing popularity is doing is demanding that financial service firms take a minute and consider the hard questions.

How do you ensure good outcomes for customers? What do you do for those people whose needs you can’t meet as a firm? How do you clearly put a value on the specialist nature of the advice you provide? Does your charging structure offer fair value to customers? Are people genuinely making the best use of the features of the products they choose?

These are just some of the thorny questions that firms will need to answer to the satisfaction of themselves and the regulator post-July 2023. I also think that some of these answers will evolve over time as people discuss and debate what good looks like.

One example could be proc fees which more lenders may choose to cap and pass the value back to customers to ensure they meet fair value assessments. Change is never easy, but I do think we need to be ready for it.

FR: What are you hearing from your members about this and how do they intend to implement it? Any changes to business models or strategic direction?

PG: Given the fact that this significant piece of legislation is arriving as the industry works to mitigate the impact of the September mini-budget, I could understand the temptation to do only as much as is absolutely needed. However, speaking to members, they are typically embracing the ethos of Consumer Duty and taking the time to consider how to roll this out most effectively.

Fair value is obviously a talking point and advice firms need to be comfortable that the service they provide reflects the income they receive. Given the specialist nature of the advice, I don’t think anyone is arguing that the fees should not be higher in this sector but rather encouraging a look at the status quo to ensure anomalies are addressed and business models are robust.

At Air, we aim to be a ‘lighthouse’ for those looking to navigate through these tricky questions as well as the more practical ones.

FR: What are your ambitions for Air and the support it provides for its members?

PG: Due to the power of our integrated proposition and the hard work of the team, Air has seen consistent organic growth since it was launched. We excel in spotting opportunities to support our members with the recently launched Vulnerability module for Air Academy a perfect example of identifying a need and stepping up to meet it.

What we now need to do is to determine how we ensure that our various offerings work together to provide the best possible adviser support. Ultimately, our ambition is to be at the forefront of helping advisers make sense of the later-life lending market as it evolves. Lots to do and some exciting initiatives coming down the pipeline.

FR: Looking to 2024, how do you think the market will have evolved and changed? Bearing in mind Consumer Duty, potential product innovation and fairly low current volumes?

PG: I think innovation will be the key word for the later-life lending industry over the next 12 months as people realise that the new normal, coupled with the advent of Consumer Duty means we have to think differently.

Whether it is new products, customer engagement or the use of affordability to rule products out, I think as an industry we will need to be prepared to grow and Air is there to support this change. Working closely with our broad range of Lender Ambassadors and partners, Air will also be doing more to help advisers navigate the new product landscape and deliver good outcomes.