Money skills everyone needs

Principled marketing is pivotal in building a sustainable relationship with customers, argues HELEN PAGE Head of Marketing at Royal Bank of Scotland.

At RBS, we’re determined to build the most helpful and sustainable bank – we will only achieve this by being ethical in our marketing practices and adhering to the outcomes and principles of ‘Treating Customers Fairly’. Being helpful is about listening to our customers, offering simple products that meet our customers' needs and finding and fixing the things that cause complaints.

Our MoneySense programme is a key part of this strategy. MoneySense helps customers and non-customers to understand and manage their money. Our employees give lessons in secondary schools to help the next generation of earners and spenders make confident decisions with their personal finances.
In 2009, over 700 employees were involved in the programme and delivered over 28,000 lessons to over 335,000 pupils. MoneySense is present in over 60% of secondary schools across the UK. In an attempt to raise awareness of this programme, TV ads ran in January and March resulting in over 300 additional enquiries from schools about this service.

“We’ve spoken to over 30,000 young people to help us understand what skills they’ll benefit from to shape their financial futures.”
We’ve done that over the past three years, as part of a five-year project to see how young people manage their money. This year, the findings from our independently run MoneySense Research Panel show that MoneySense lessons in schools are paying off: young people are more likely to keep track of their money, save most of their money and talk more about money matters at home.

Research has suggested that 90% of adults didn't get any financial education at school so we know it’s important to help adults as well as school children. We do this through our websites, which get over 60,000 unique hits per month. The websites have a budget tool as well as debt management tools provided by The Consumer Credit Counselling Service (CCCS).

There’s also clear information explaining the range of personal products available to consumers. MoneySense booklets are available in all of our branches (about 20,000 are picked up every month). All of our MoneySense material is free and impartial so it doesn't promote our own products.

“If customers aren't clear on what they’re buying, they won’t stay with us and our relationship won’t be sustainable.”
That’s why we’re absolutely focused on building the most helpful and sustainable bank. This means we’re building relationships with our customers for the long term. It’s vital that we tailor products to meet the needs of all our customers. It’s in the best interests of our customers and of a strong stable RBS.

The challenge for any bank is to ensure that their literature is clear and transparent while making sure all the appropriate regulatory and legal disclosures are covered. We’re reviewing our product literature in response to customer feedback to ensure it is clear, simple and delivered in plain English. This is about balance and our customers’ views in this regard are critical to getting it right.

We’ve taken decisive steps in meeting the needs of our customers. For example, we have a range of mortgages to suit different needs and we exceeded last year’s Government lending commitment of £9bn. We also give our customers a 30-day "breathing space" in cases where they find their circumstances have significantly changed and they’re struggling to make their regular commitments on credit cards, unsecured loans and overdrafts.

With this year’s ISA season, our approach was to educate our customers about ISAs and what ISAs can do for them. Our 'understanding ISAs' guides were focused on being helpful rather than simply advertising our latest deals.

“Helping consumers with simple budget planning means they’re better equipped to recognise early signs of financial difficulty.”
This knowledge, provided by MoneySense, equips consumers if they experience a life change like losing a job or going through divorce. It will also have a positive effect in terms of the future borrowing choices they may make. To bring a sense of certainty to customers’ financial futures, it is important to make realistic plans that include life protection and retirement.

Saving is also a key component and last year RBS launched a new online savings tool which allows customers to work out a savings plan for their specific goals and visually shows customers the progress they’re making towards it and whether they’re saving enough. Over 45,000 customers with an average ‘saving goal’ of £5,000 are now using the tool.

To help kick-start a saving habit among people on lower incomes and benefits, RBS will be one of the first banks to offer the ‘Savings Gateway’ account. This is a Government initiative and, for every £1 saved over a two-year period, the Government will contribute 50p (subject to a Government maximum of £300).

“When it comes to advertising and marketing consumer credit products and services, it is important that consumers have an independent body looking out for their interests to ensure there is consistency across the advertising industry.”
In these areas (above) it is generally preferable to have a regulator-led solution.

Consumers expect and welcome their banks to help them by providing a range of products and helpful guidance to suit their ever changing circumstances in life. By making consumers aware of the help available to them through our MoneySense website or indeed by chatting to our branch staff, we can help build confidence in the industry.

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