TCC and Recordsure opened their 'AI for compliance' webinar series with a spotlight on suitability reviews – an area many wealth managers struggle to get it right first time.
Hosted by TCC and Recordsure’s Chief Product and Commercial Officer, Garry Evans and joined by TCC’s Technical Director, David Boyhan and Operations Director, Neil Dethick, the session explored how firms can shift away from tick-box checking towards reviews that add real value. In turn, this leads to lasting results that improve adviser performance and strengthen customer outcomes.
A live poll revealed where attendees see the root causes of unclear suitability ratings. 38% cited issues with fact finding and risk assessment, while 62% pointed to insufficient rationale for recommendations. As Neil Dethick explained, this aligns with his team’s day-to-day experience: files often fall short because advisers haven‘t fully explained their reasoning, discounted alternative solutions or fully covered key considerations like taxation.
Why suitability reviews miss the mark
Too often, suitability checks are treated as an administrative exercise. Advisers receive unclear ratings without detailed feedback, creating frustration and combative relationships with compliance colleagues. Reviews can also have too narrow a focus, perhaps on individual cases, or products and thereby miss the bigger picture and prevent firms from spotting recurring weaknesses. Efforts to cut costs and speed up reviews can also backfire, delivering quick results but without delivering meaningful developmental insight.
The hidden costs
One major inefficiency is adviser rework. When files are repeatedly sent back as unclear without constructive guidance, advisers have to spend unprofitable time remediating cases instead of serving clients. Detailed feedback signposting where the issues lie will, by its very nature, help to prevent the issue recurring in future cases. A better way forward.
The opportunity lies in turning reviews into a source of learning rather than friction. By combining AI-driven insights with expert oversight, firms can provide clear, actionable feedback that helps advisers understand what went wrong, and also why. Thematic analysis of review data can also uncover systemic issues – whether in factfinding, risk assessment or adviser training so firms can tackle problems at the root cause.
Suitability reviews that encourage and develop a right–first-time mentality become more than a compliance necessity. Review outcomes evolve into a tool for improving customer outcomes, reducing costs and reframing compliance as an enabler of business growth.
Read the full transcript below or watch the first section of the webinar now:
Garry Evans:
So today we will explore the ways in which we have found that firms can make suitability reviews a value-adding activity rather than a tick-box exercise, generating more problems than they solve.
But I want to start with a very easy poll to gauge where you consider the root cause to be of unclear suitability ratings. So, if you can get your mouses ready, click on the option that best matches your views.
Let’s see the poll results, please?
What’s the biggest barrier in ensuring suitability is “right first time”?
- Adviser attention to detail: 0%
- Insufficient or contradictory factfinding / attitude to risk determination: 38%
- Insufficient rationale provided for the recommendation: 62%
- Something else: 0%
Okay. Neil, you’ve overseen tens of thousands of suitability reviews. Does the poll outcome
Align to what you’ve experienced?
Neil Dethick:
Absolutely. In fact, I would have put the question with the insufficient rationale at the top because that is the most common reason for a file to be rated unclear. So yes, absolutely. Putting more detail on that, it could be that alternative options are not fully discounted, discussed, or evidenced.
It could be that taxation issues are not fully covered off. And, obviously, there are inconsistencies that we often see between fact-finding and suitability reports. So, it absolutely represents what we’re seeing in our day-to-day work.
Garry Evans:
Marvellous. Thank you. Well, as you’re on Neil, I was wondering if we could start with painting a picture of what we are hearing about how suitability reviews are conducted and the impact that has on both customer outcomes and the relationships between compliance and the advisers.
Neil Dethick:
Yeah, sure. So, in our experience, we’re now seeing that suitability checks are taking the form quite often of a tick box exercise with very little meaningful feedback or insights provided on top of that, which would support the file rating. A tick box exercise with little thought collateral often leads to a lack of clarity and understanding on the part of the adviser as to why an unclear or even unsuitable rating has been applied. This can often develop into a combative and confrontational compliance relationship and resistance to developmental change.
In a wider context, the bigger picture can often be lost if the focus is on individual cases and narrow-scope themed reviews, which often result in a failure to identify the key themes and trends that are apparent. But also, understandably and perhaps one of the reasons behind this is that firms are continually looking for efficiencies and added value to be delivered from their compliance costs. But sometimes this drive for efficiency can be misplaced. Tick box reviews can provide an instant ”sugar rush” in terms of the speed and average handling times, but taken at face value, the results would not provide any meaningful risk mitigation or indeed development potential.
One of the hidden compliance costs that we come across is the non-profitable time that
advisers have to spend on rework or remediation when an unclear case is submitted back to them. And finally, on this point, we found that when risk-based sampling is undertaken by a firm, it’s often poorly implemented. Sample sizes are too small, or the scope is perhaps too narrow. And where this is the case, the results of that, risk-based sampling are often stilted or ineffective or inconclusive, with very little evidence being made available for which to undertake any root cause analysis.
Ready to watch the webinar in full? Catch up with it here.
Take the next step
At Recordsure we use AI technology with TCC’s deep regulatory expertise to help firms move beyond tick-box compliance and achieve better outcomes for advisers and clients alike. If you’d like to explore how we can help you get more “right–first–time“ results, get in touch today.
