TCF Index Limited, the first dedicated Treating Customers Fairly consultancy, has launched an IFA version of their TCF assessment tool, the TCF Index BaseBoard™. This follows steady demand from intermediaries for the BaseBoard™ since the company launched in May 2007.

The IFA version uses the same methodology as the full version for product providers. It analyses a company according to the four key components in looking after customers properly, namely:

• Proposition (i.e. what is being offered)
• People (i.e. who is involved in offering it)
• Service and Delivery (i.e. how it is being offered)
• Communications Design (i.e. how it is being communicated)

Subscribing IFAs are given access to their own BaseBoard™ with an online tutorial to enable them to undertake their own TCF assessment. Through a process of depth questioning and gathering of appropriate management information, the BaseBoard™ produces a view of how the company sits within the TCF principles, and it highlights areas of strength and weakness to enable senior management to take appropriate action.

Joint Managing Director, Phil Evans, commented: “By March 2008, the FSA wishes to see that firms have the appropriate management information or measures in place to test whether they are treating customers fairly. Our system enables IFAs to have a specially adapted, tried and tested TCF tool at their disposal that will significantly enhance their ability to demonstrate their commitment to TCF.”

Further details can be found at www.tcf-index.com.

ENDS

For further information, please contact : Phil Evans, Joint Managing Director, TCF Index Limited

Beverley Harvey, Parkside Public Relations

Notes to Editors

TCF Index Limited is a new breed of organisation devoted to all aspects of Treating Customers Fairly (TCF). TCF Index aims to be a centre of excellence and the first port of call for anyone aspiring to best practice under the Treating Customers Fairly principles. TCF Index is the brainchild of Brunswick MCL Limited, which has a strong 20 year track history of marketing and management consultancy in retail financial services.

TCF is about balancing the customer’s needs with the firm’s needs and being absolutely clear about what the firm and its services offer. In their supervision visits, the FSA are not only looking at systems and controls but at all aspects of how TCF is being implemented into the business and its culture. The FSA expects senior management to lead cultural change within their organisation to ensure that they are treating their customers fairly at all stages of the customer journey, from initial contact through to delivery of the final benefit or service.

TCF Index provides support and information on all TCF issues, underpinned by a series of unique programmes and tools both for individuals and firms. These include specialist analysis tools, intervention programmes, coaching services, seminars and topical, relevant publications. At the heart of the TCF Index support and information services is the TCF Index BaseBoard™ Programme, a unique combination of diagnostic tools and display techniques that shows a firm’s TCF status compared with both its own objectives and current best practice. Just as TCF should be an ongoing integral part of business culture, the TCF Index BaseBoard™ Programme is also an ongoing analysis and assessment programme that identifies where a firm is at all stages of the customer journey from initial contact through to delivery of the final benefit or service. It is a programme that not only helps a firm understand its current TCF status but remains as a constant development and monitoring aid