Insight
What the Consumer Duty requires, how the four outcomes apply to advice conversations, what your board must sign off each year — and how to build evidence that stands up, call by call.
6 min read
Can a firm use AI voice agents to ring customers in the UK? What PECR regulation 19 says about automated calls, what the ICO has said about AI-generated voices, where the TPS, caller ID and Ofcom's abandoned-call rules fit, what the FCA expects of financial promotions and advice, and a checklist to work through before the first AI call.
12 min read
Speed to lead is one of the most quoted ideas in sales, and one of the most misquoted. What the 2011 Harvard Business Review study and the 2007 Lead Response Management study actually found, why both need care, and how a regulated UK advice firm can call new enquiries quickly without turning speed into pressure.
10 min read
The FCA has no AI-specific rules: an AI voice agent that rings your customers is covered by the Consumer Duty, SM&CR and your governance and controls, like any other channel. What the cross-cutting rules, consumer understanding, consumer support and FG21/1 mean on an AI call, where the advice boundary sits, and how to test, govern and monitor an AI caller.
11 min read
An AI caller can follow up an equity release enquiry, answer general questions and book the adviser. Here is where its job ends, what it can safely say, what it must never say, and how to handle the concerns older customers raise.
11 min read
What PRIN 2A.9 requires, what the FCA's July 2026 outcomes monitoring review and its 2024 insurance review found, and how to build a framework of defined outcomes, explained tolerances, root cause and action, with call evidence where it fits.
11 min read
The consumer understanding outcome asks firms to equip customers to make properly informed decisions. What PRIN 2A.5 requires on a phone or face-to-face advice call, what the FCA's March 2026 review found, and how to check and evidence understanding on calls.
11 min read
What the Consumer Duty's consumer support outcome (PRIN 2A.6) means on the phone: sludge versus appropriate friction, what the FCA's review and its July 2026 smaller-firm examples say, supporting vulnerable clients, and how to evidence support from your calls.
11 min read
Who has to record calls under FCA rules now that SYSC 10A has replaced COBS 11.8, whether mortgage and equity release advisers are in scope, how long to keep recordings, and what UK GDPR expects when you tell callers and staff.
11 min read
A ready-to-use call monitoring form for FCA-regulated advice calls: the items to score, binary versus weighted scoring, which misses should fail a call outright, how to keep reviewers consistent, and how to turn the results into Consumer Duty evidence.
11 min read
What the duty of responsibility and the Senior Manager Conduct Rules expect, what the FCA considers when it judges reasonable steps, what it has said about records, and how call monitoring can become evidence a senior manager can point to.
11 min read
A complaint tells you something went wrong, not why. What the FCA expects from complaints root cause analysis under DISP and the Consumer Duty, why complaint data alone falls short, and how call recordings help you find, fix and evidence the cause.
11 min read
Sampling feels proportionate until you do the maths. How likely a sample is to catch a problem that affects one call in fifty, how big a sample really needs to be, and why reviewing every call first changes the question.
4 min read
The annual board assessment is where Consumer Duty evidence comes together. A practical structure, the call-derived MI that strengthens each section, and how to present it so the board can challenge it.
4 min read
What compliance should hear on every equity release fact find and follow-up — from alternatives and roll-up to independent legal advice and vulnerability — with why each point matters and how to check it.
5 min read
AI assistants can now answer questions about a client's calls in seconds. In a regulated firm, an answer is only useful if you can check it. How retrieval, citations and 'listen to this moment' make that possible.
4 min read
Automated call QA is only as good as the rules you give it. A practical guide to writing rules that are specific, observable and fair — with examples of each rule type and how to test them before you rely on them.
3 min read
A buyer's checklist for compliance and operations leaders evaluating AI call QA — evidence, accuracy, coverage, people, security and cost — with what a good answer sounds like for each.
4 min read
Where AI genuinely helps regulated advice firms — call QA, vulnerability, summaries and document checks — where it doesn't, how the FCA approaches it, and the questions to answer before you rely on it.
4 min read
What AI call monitoring actually does once a call ends, how to tell whether its verdicts can be trusted, and a practical rollout plan for regulated advice firms — without the hype.
5 min read
Most compliance dashboards report activity, not outcomes. Here are the call QA measures that actually evidence the Consumer Duty, how to present them to a board, and the traps that make MI misleading.
4 min read
Equity release advice sits at the sharp end of the Consumer Duty: older customers, lifelong products and close regulatory attention. Here's what good outcome evidence looks like — and how to build it from every advice call.
3 min read
The FCA groups the drivers of vulnerability into health, life events, resilience and capability. Here's how each tends to surface in a real conversation, what good handling sounds like, and how to evidence it.
9 min read
See how COSA reviews every call against your rules — and gives you the Consumer Duty evidence these articles talk about.
