Making Sense of Stocks & Shares ISAs

Hyde, Richard; Reynolds, Faith

Abstract

Legal and regulatory communications designed to help consumers aren’t doing their job. This isn’t new news. The FCA has challenged firms to improve their communications and design with the consumer in mind. The Consumer Duty is in motion. Nevertheless, the FCA’s own regulations and firms’ risk appetite mean that consumers are still being presented with reams of text and complex jargon.

Firms’ communications are putting people off investing. In 2022, TISA’s work with Oxera found that over 70% of people with £5k in a cash savings account didn’t even consider investing in a S&S ISA because they thought it was ‘too risky’. Of those that did try to open an account, between 21% and 24% dropped out of the investing journey when they sought to find out information about S&S ISAs or assess them for their own benefit.

In response, TISA has worked with its members and the University of Nottingham and Amplified Global to design and test three Key Features Documents (KFD). UX and functional design support for the Key Features Document (KFD) prototype was provided by EY-Seren. Each KFD was increasingly shortened and simplified:

• An Original KFD, considered compliant with regulatory requirements, pre-Consumer Duty (4,149 words)

• A Simplified KFD, considered compliant with regulatory requirements following the introduction of the Consumer Duty (2,131 words)

• And a Digital KFD, not fully compliant but based on what TISA members think consumers should know when investing (full text: 1,289 words; main screens only: 592 words)

Citation

Hyde, R., & Reynolds, F. (2024). Making Sense of Stocks & Shares ISAs. The Investing and Saving Alliance

• Report Type: Research Report
• Publication Date: 2024-03
• Deposit Date: Nov 7, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 7, 2025
• Pages: 1-90
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/41551949
• Publisher URL: https://www.tisa.uk.com/inclusiveinvesting/making-sense-of-stocks-shares-isas/