"If we only look at the rules the FCA is proposing, and not at the cultural change that they’re challenging us to make, I think that means that we as a profession would be missing out on something very fundamental, and it would invite, actually, the wrong kind of regulation."
- Dr Matthew Connell, Director of Policy & Public Affairs at the CII
The webinar was in collaboration with the Association of British Insurers (ABI) and led by Dr Matthew Connell, Director of Policy & Public Affairs at the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII).
Matthew believes that the regulation aspect of Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) is focused “almost exclusively on things that only the regulator can do, and the most important element is what’s happening in the market in terms of culture and practice on a day-to-day basis.”
He said: “I think sometimes the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) gets criticised for rules not being prescriptive enough, or comprehensive enough, but I think there is an awareness, with the regulators and particularly with the FCA, that this is very much a developing situation.
“There’s a huge amount of test-and-learn that’s going on in terms of balancing out not just the needs of different protected groups, but also issues around intersectionality and how being a member of more than one protected group might change people’s circumstances,” Matthew added.
To understand the FCA’s stance, he thinks the industry should focus on the “wider statements that it makes, not just about EDI, but also about vulnerability, because it’s in that interaction with customers and making that interaction meaningful.”
He said: “We see significant practical benefits in firms exploring customers’ needs from different perspectives. And so, I think that’s really the encouragement in the Consumer Duty towards a culture of curiosity and learning, and applying specific solutions for specific consumers, especially through the lens of vulnerability, is at the heart of what the FCA is doing.”
Discussing the Treasury’s ‘Sexism in the City’ Report which found only “incremental improvements” in the proportion of women holding senior roles in Financial Services, Matthew said there were a lot of “perceptive conclusions in the report, but I also think maybe the Committee missed the point to some extent about what the FCA is doing, when they said they didn’t see the point of the FCA’s data collection requirements, and that these requirements could be a tick box exercise that was duplicating work that’s already been done.
“At the heart of what the regulators are trying to promote is a culture that comes from firms learning about the needs of their different customers through the lens of diversity. That doesn’t necessarily mean employing people from lots of different backgrounds or lots of different protected groups, but actually becoming involved in networks that are available to them through their profession to gain perspectives more widely,” he added.
READ MORE: Report finds ‘big pockets of no progress whatsoever’ for women in finance
After the webinar, Janice Fordjour, Policy Adviser, Prudential Regulation at the ABI, said the industry body is very supportive of the FCA & the Prudential Regulation Authority’s (PRA) efforts to improve EDI awareness across the industry. “We welcome the proposals set out in the regulators’ consultations that would encourage firms to collect employee data across a wider range of EDI considerations – experience shows us that what gets measured, gets managed,” they concluded.
