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Fairer Finance Champions STAR

Press Release

Fairer Finance Champions STAR

23 July 2019

Fairer Finance, the consumer voice in financial services, has endorsed the STAR initiative. STAR aims to galvanise the industry in its goal of improving the outcomes for individuals who want to transfer their assets, such as pensions and investments. This will significantly improve the transfer performance of the industry.

Fairer Finance was founded in 2014 by consumer champion James Daley. The business is a social enterprise which use its profits to pay for its campaigning work and to grow the business. Its mission is to create a financial services market which is fair for consumers as well as the companies that serve them. Fairer Finance represents the customer’s voice in financial services.

A growing community of firms have signed up to the STAR initiative, which officially launched in November 2018 and already has over 40 companies and organisations committed to shaping recognised, industry-wide standards to promote good practice in transfers. The first steering group and working groups have met with more scheduled.

The STAR remit is clearly defined and will:

  1. Define the processes required to complete a transfer;
  2. Specify good practice targets for each of those processes;
  3. Measure, recognise and accredit performance excellence across the industry.

“We are delighted that Fairer finance is supporting the STAR initiative. It’s vitally important to us that we continue to focus on the customer, and it will really help that we can harness the expertise of James and his team. We are pleased with wide-ranging and extensive industry support we have received and continue to receive, which will help galvanise the industry to forge ahead with change and to improve things for customers.”

“The STAR initiative is an important move for the industry, and Fairer Finance is fully supportive and endorses the work they are doing. This is about the industry doing things better for their customers and through STAR, the industry has the opportunity to demonstrate its commitment to improving customers outcomes, in advance of the Regulator’s further paper based on the consultation, which is due in Winter 2019. Some customers still have to wait for a pension schemes to write out a cheque and post it to complete a transfer, which in this day and age, is hard to fathom. With reports of transfers regularly taking several months to complete, yet banking being subject to a 7-day switching guarantee, it should be no surprise that the FCA has taken a keen interest in resolving the issue for consumers.”

Notes

For further information please contact:

Matthew Dransfield
Commercial and Marketing Director
Criterion
0773 765 0010
media@criterion.org.uk

About STAR

STAR was created as a collaboration between Criterion and TeX, combining the industry-reach, unique strengths, experience and shared ambition of the two not-for-profit organisations.

Criterion was formed for the industry in July 2017, as an independent, not-for-profit industry body providing Standards and Governance services. It was originally part of Origo Services Ltd and has been publishing process and integration standards for over 25 years. Criterion is uniquely positioned to facilitate and drive cross-industry engagement, helping organisations achieve higher levels of collaboration, reduce costs and achieve better outcomes for their consumers.

TeX is a not-for-profit organisation which works with the industry to ensure that the maximum benefit is provided to all members. This new company is financially independent from TISA but benefits from being linked to the TISA brand through name, the expertise provided by the two corporate entity directorships and the administrative support provided by TISA.

SERVICING AGREEMENT

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1. APPLICANT COVERED BY THIS REGISTRATION.
Please note this registration will not be processed if Step 1 has not been completed.
If your organisation is acting only as an affiliate, you do not need to complete Step 2.
2a. CHOOSE YOUR BRAND
STAR manages the administration of third-party access to the portal, rather than the member firm. This allows for a smoother transition for the member firm and allowing immediate access to the supplier to submit MI on their behalf. STAR will hold an approved list of users per supplier, which will be allocated to your account at the point of registration. This ensures each ‘external’ user has the same access across all their client accounts. Supplier access is restricted and they do not have any ability to see any company information for any client other than what they submit on your behalf. You as the member control access for any other users within your organisation. We will include a more detailed description about the user access on your welcome email and it is clearly defined as part of the User Guide.
STAR RELATIONSHIP MANAGER FOR FIRST BRAND
This person will be the main contact for all notices and other formal communications under this agreement and will be responsible for the administration of the members portal access (including without limitation the providing, updating and removing of authorised User access to the portal during the Term).
2b.
STAR RELATIONSHIP MANAGER FOR THE SECOND BRAND
This person will be the main contact for all notices and other formal communications under this agreement and will be responsible for the administration of the members portal access (including without limitation the providing, updating and removing of authorised User access to the portal during the Term).
2c.
STAR RELATIONSHIP MANAGER FOR THE THIRD BRAND
This person will be the main contact for all notices and other formal communications under this agreement and will be responsible for the administration of the members portal access (including without limitation the providing, updating and removing of authorised User access to the portal during the Term).
2d.
STAR RELATIONSHIP MANAGER FOR THE FOURTH BRAND
This person will be the main contact for all notices and other formal communications under this agreement and will be responsible for the administration of the members portal access (including without limitation the providing, updating and removing of authorised User access to the portal during the Term).
3. INVOICE INFORMATION
Invoices are sent by email as standard, if a printed invoice is required please note the address and your requirements in the additional information section.
4. DECLARATION
Before we can process your Brand Registration a STAR Servicing Agreement needs to be signed. Your signatory must be duly authorised for and on behalf of the organisation named in this application.
We only require one signed STAR Servicing Agreement which will cover all brands that you wish to register. Upon completion of this form we will check our records to ensure an agreement hasn't already been signed, if so a new contract will not be sent to your signatory.
STAR will email the servicing contract to the signatory email address (provided below) through our electronic platform Yoti. This declaration must be signed in order for your application to complete, once we receive the signed agreement we will instruct our finance department to issue your invoice.

Application submitted successfully

Thank you for applying to join the STAR accreditation scheme. We will endeavour to respond as soon as possible using the contact information you’ve provided to us.