Next year marks the 25th anniversary of the 2001 Bank Act reform that created the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada and introduced new disclosure rules, including plain-language requirements.
Bill C-8 went into force on Oct. 24 of that year, requiring banks to explain fees, charges and account terms more clearly.
Other steps followed. In 2010, insurers were made to produce Key Facts or similar plain-language documents for clients. The Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) mandated the Fund Facts document for mutual fund companies in 2011. Seven years later, CSA implemented its ETF Facts documents and segregated fund Key Facts.
Despite this progress on point-of-sale materials, it cannot be said that Canadian financial institutions have become global leaders in plain language.
In the quarter century since Bill C-8, the technology sector has led this charge, transforming consumer expectations to such an extent that the financial industry, by comparison, is seen as lacking in transparency.
The worst shortcomings are in client correspondence, where operations professionals write copy vetted by partners in legal and compliance departments. These letters, emails and other messages are driven primarily by process, legal and regulatory requirements. They lack compassion and any appreciation of the fact that many Canadians struggle to understand financial matters.
Few are ever reviewed by a professional writer, let alone one expert in plain language best practices.
These pieces live for years in databases packed with industry jargon and passive sentences. They’re sent to customers every day, each time triggering frustration, stress and further deteriorating the industry’s reputation for client care.
Elevate the writing function
The solution is as plain as the language regulators are calling for:elevate the writing function, beyond its current position in communications and marketing departments.
Writing teams should have vice-president-level leadership engaged in client experience decision making. They need the kind of management team endorsement that raises their standing, and signals to operations, legal and compliance partners that their input matters.
Writers do not enjoy anything near that in today’s financial services industry. They are junior members of virtually every working team they sit on. When a compliance professional changes something they’ve written, the conversation is over.
Writers need to step up too. The industry has more than its share of professionals who’ve given in to industry-speak. The worst of them hide behind jargon when they don’t understand the topic they’ve been assigned to write about.
If financial services writers want to be taken seriously, they need to learn the business and get a lot better at advocating for customer-friendly plain language communications. Those content to be junior partners will not contribute to the kind of progress required to meet Canadians’ expectations.
The industry can fix this, even if it’s one letter at a time.
This article appears in the September issue of Investment Executive. Read the digital edition or read the articles online.
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