The industry is only now beginning to get to grips with the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) regulations and implementation, according to DataFlux.

Research by the group, in association with JWG, revealed that banks are also struggling with the creation of a Single Customer View – legislation which requires one accurate view of each customer to be in place within all UK insurers, building societies and retail and investment banks by 1 January 2011.

Out of 800 deposit holding institutions in the UK, to which FSCS reform applies, just 59 per cent of people contacted, who were responsible for the data in their company, had heard of the requirement for Single Customer View.

When respondents were asked about the consequences they expected if their institution failed to meet the FSCS SCV deadline, the majority (65 per cent) believed it would incur greater scrutiny from the regulator and a financial penalty which could be millions of pounds.

PJ Di Giammarino, Founder and CEO, JWG, commented: ““The customer data issue isn’t going away anytime soon. Accurate customer data is critical to the regulatory tsunami as it is fundamental to controlling risk, protecting customers, and spotting market abuse. We have already seen five high profile firms fined a total of £7.3 million by the FSA in relation to errors and our findings suggest there will be significant penalties for those companies that neglect the development of a Single Customer View.”

A Single Customer View does provide benefits across the enterprise. For instance, respondents see SCV as benefitting a variety of business functions; the back-office (80 per cent), risk management (64 per cent) and revenue generating departments (40 per cent). Of the institutions surveyed only 14 per cent consider the SCV project a strategic opportunity to deliver above and beyond compliance while the remaining 86 per cent view the project as an exercise in compliance and risk loosing out on the chance to improve efficiency.

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