PFS launches new Consumer Duty competency tool

The Personal Finance Society (PFS) has announced the launch of Proficiency+ - a new Consumer Duty competency diagnostic tool.

The FCA's Consumer Duty mandates high standards of conduct and behaviour towards customers, and requires firms to evidence that their people have the skills and competence conducive to good customer outcomes.

Proficiency+ employs situational judgment tests to evaluate an employees' ability to make appropriate decisions or judgments in work-related scenarios. For each work scenario, users are asked to select the most appropriate response from a set of options. They are then asked to gauge how certain they are that their answer is correct, using a confidence scale.

The results offer insights into what employees do and do not understand, and the level of confidence attributed to each of their answers. Ultimately, the report provides an indication of which employees are going to apply the right or wrong behaviour in any given scenario, allowing firms to target training where it is needed the most.

Don MacIntyre, interim CEO for the PFS, said: “We are delighted to share the PFS’ new Consumer Duty Proficiency+ diagnostic tool with the profession. We have developed the tool with practitioners and against real world scenarios to ensure that all who use it can take tangible steps towards raising industry standards, building public trust, and facilitating the cultural shifts outlined in the FCA’s Consumer Duty guidelines.”