Perceived service fairness

What is it about?

Recent changes in the financial services sector both in the UK and others countries, has led to a situation where the landscape for consumers has altered significantly. In this regard there are a number of factors that are important. One of the major factors is that consumers are capable of making informed decisions, but this is not enough by itself. For example, the UK’s Financial Services Authority (2006) identified the need for consumers to become more financially competent with the corollary of arguably, long-term financial wellbeing. The OECD (2006) also noted that there was a gap in consumers’ competence when it comes to the consumption of financial services. The need for greater financial competence is further compounded at a time when many central government policies are the onus for the provision of financial well-being to the individual (Devlin, Roy & Sekhon, 2014). The underlying concern is that while the emphasis for responsibility has shifted to the individual, it does not follow that the individual has the competence to make the correct decision (at the point of purchase or later in life). To make the correct decision, individuals need to rely on indicators to support their behavioural/decision choices. Thus, to understand behaviour, there is a requisite to understand fairness and trust. There is empirical evidence that trust and fairness have roles to play within financial services (e.g. Sekhon, Ennew, Kharouf & Devlin, 2014; Devlin et al., 2014; Roy, Devlin & Sekhon, 2015; Sekhon, Roy, Pritchard & Shergill, 2013). The case for fairness is overwhelming because financial services are characterised by the fact that often results from purchases are not evident for may be 30-40 years, as in the case of pensions. As an example, this is particularly pertinent of new pension freedoms and an auto-enrolment scheme such as Kiwi-Saver in New Zealand or the UK equivalent. Within financial services, fairness has three dimensions, procedural, distributive, and interactional. Considering the dimensions as a collective, the underlying principal is that financial services have to be been seen to be treating consumer fairly. In order to do this they must reasonably be clear in terms of providing any explanation, treat each consumer equally, and be benevolent in their dealing with their consumers. Owing to the complexity of financial services purchases can be made complicated and that some consumer may not have the capability to make informed decisions. Therefore the fair treat treatment of consumer is central, will the result of consumer consume the right of types of products. Thus is not the overconsumption of debt type products and this can only happen if the consumer is fairly treated and not taken advantage off. By developing new well nuanced scale, we are able to provide directions for practitioner and theorists when it comes to understanding fairness and trust within financial services. We also suggest that our measure is likely to be generalisable across contexts and geographies, and is not limited to financial services.

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