It seems that for once everyone agrees that the literature produced for financial products is full of industry terms that the general public doesn't understand. Many consumers, when questioned for a recent survey, said that the literature they receive for financial products was either complex, pushy or irrelevant. They also talked about the sheer volume of literature and many confessed to just throwing it away.
One interesting comment made was that consumers make very fast decisions regarding whether or not to read a piece of literature. It seems that if the picture or illustration on the front of the literature is not a reflection of the product itself, it may be discarded as not relevant to the person reading it. One example was regarding literature with older people pictured on the front. Many apparently saw this as a product for older people and threw it away.
Our View
The results of this research by Bdifferent, a brand company, only reinforces what most people in the financial services industry already knew. Product literature is cumbersome and a lot of the information is only included because the industry regulator says it should be. Product providers have to comply with very stringent rules and obviously they also want to cover their own backs. This is why there is so much small print.
To be perfectly honest, who can blame them with the size of fines made for getting it wrong? However, what the research does highlight is that people do not understand the products they have and probably do not retain the literature to refer to. This makes the possibility of a complaint highly likely and everyone should be concerned.
A drive backed by everyone to simplify literature would reduce the number of complaints and would probably encourage more people to move their money out of a bank account and into investments.