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Our duty to clients

We are committed to ensuring that our products provide consistently good outcomes for our clients, so they can pursue their financial objectives. We're providing this information to ensure you have the appropriate tools available when considering the Royal London Equity Release product range for your clients.  

Our products are appropriate for...

The target market for our product range is typically customers who are looking to:

  • Enhance retirement finances by releasing equity from their home ‐ these customers will typically be looking to ‘top up’ state or personal pension schemes to enjoy a better standard of living in retirement.
  • Repay existing borrowing, commonly including those with an interest-only mortgage approaching the end of term, with no repayment vehicle in place.
  • Gift to family and friends for a range of reasons, including helping children get onto the property ladder, sometimes as part of a financial planning and Inheritance Tax (IHT) management strategy.
  • Aspire to do the things they have always wanted to do, be that a dream holiday, home improvements or a luxury purchase.

Our products are not appropriate for...

Due to the nature and restrictions of the product, it may not be appropriate for the following client segments:

  • Clients younger than 55 years old, or in the case of joint homeowners, when the youngest applicant is younger than 55 years old*.
  • Clients who want to make contracted and fixed monthly repayments by Direct Debit on a monthly basis. This is a feature we do not offer.
  • Clients who wish to ringfence a fixed portion of their property to leave as an inheritance to family or friends, as our products do not offer an Inheritance Protection feature.

Ensuring fair value

We have undertaken a thorough and detailed assessment of our product ranges to ensure they offer fair value to our clients.

Both advisers and lenders are accountable for good consumer outcomes and safeguarding customers. We have undertaken a thorough and detailed assessment of our product ranges to ensure they offer fair value to our customers.

You can download assessments of our product ranges below.

Client vulnerability

We recognise that our target market is made up of clients in their later lives and as a result, they are more likely to display characteristics of vulnerability. We understand that vulnerability is transient and may present at any point during the client’s relationship with us.

Particularly, we recognise that due to the age profile of our intended clients, certain types of vulnerability are likely to be more prevalent. These include:

  • Life events – such as the death of a partner or spouse.
  • Financial difficulty – clients who may be vulnerable due to their financial circumstances.
  • Resilience – clients who may struggle to understand complex financial products.
  • Coercion – clients who may be susceptible to fraud or scams.

How we support customers

We have introduced several methods for identifying and supporting customer vulnerability, namely:

  • All our staff are trained to identify and manage customer vulnerability, both when they start with us and on an ongoing annual basis.
  • We monitor vulnerable customer MI to identify themes and trends and introduce learning back into the business to continuously improve.
  • Checks and balances ‐ we deploy a number of pre-borrowing checks such as Experian credit checks to identify Financial Vulnerability and CIFAS Fraud Checks to limit the risk of fraudulent activity.
  • We signpost customers to supporting organisations when we believe it is beneficial to the customer for us to do so.
  • We check in with our customers by providing an Annual Statement, but we may contact customers more frequently where we believe it necessary. We may refer the customer to you if we feel they may benefit from further advice and appreciate your support in providing this.