Oak Tree Structured Finance Limited Treating Customers Fairly Policy

Policy Statement

OTSF Limited ensures that clients are at the very heart of all that we do. We are fully committed to providing the highest standards of customer service.

Where we have alluded to “clients” in this policy, we refer to all Third Parties connected with the transaction.

Our clients are our most valuable asset and our aim is to ensure we deliver a user-friendly, robust, reliable and cost-effective service to all concerned.

As a part of our overall approach we are fully committed to treating our clients fairly and as such we endeavour to meet their expectations of high quality service.

Our Treating Customers Fairly (TCF) policy is centred around the guidance provided by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to ensure we consistently deliver fair outcomes to our customers and take responsibility for both OTSF Limited as an organisation, and our staff providing an enhanced quality of service to clients, based on a culture of openness and transparency.

As a company, we take the requirements of the FCA seriously, in particular, the requirement to treat customers fairly.

The FCA has outlined six key themes which are central to our TCF initiative:

1. Clients should be confident that they are dealing with companies where treating customers fairly is embedded in the corporate culture
2. Services marketed and sold are done so with the aim that they meet the needs of clients and are targeted accordingly
3. Clients should be provided with clear information and are kept appropriately informed before, during and after the service provision
4. Where advice is provided, it takes into account a client’s individual circumstances
5. The service provided is of an acceptable standard
6. Clients do not face unreasonable barriers to make a complaint

We have set out how we aim to ensure these principles are embedded in our approach to dealing with our clients.

Treating Customers Fairly is a core principle of our company and the way we conduct our business.

We are constantly striving to improve our service and develop new and innovative ways to communicate our services and new product information to all parties who may have had historic dealings with our company or may have dealings with us in the future.

Central to our Treating Customers Fairly ethos is our commitment to providing clear and concise information, free of “jargon” and written in plain English.

The core principles of our “Treating Customers Fairly” Policy are as follows;

1. OTSF Limited is an organisation which holds the fair treatment of our clients as central to our corporate culture.
2. Products and services marketed and arranged in the financial market are designed to meet the individual needs of our clients. We will only recommend options which are suitable and that our clients can afford.
3. Our customers are provided with clear information and are kept appropriately informed before, during and after the leasing finance has been arranged.
4. Where we offer advice to our customers, the advice is suitable and takes account of their individual circumstances, having obtained an understanding of their requirements.
5. Clients will not face unreasonable post-leasing arrangement barriers imposed to change products should it transpire they are not fit for purpose or are substandard or make a complaint.
6. We will ensure that any complaints or grievances are handled in a sympathetic, positive and professional manner and within a reasonable time-frame.
7. OTSF Limited will ensure that members of staff are kept up to date with relevant training in relation to competence, data protection and other matters directly affecting the quality of service offered to clients.
8. We will offer our staff regular training in the principles of TCF as and when appropriate, ensuring continuing professional development by encouraging reading of the trade press, FCA website, newsletters and dissemination of relevant information as and when it becomes available.

Our Service

• We ascertain the appropriateness of the requested service for all new clients prior to accepting a deal, ensuring it is in line with their knowledge and experience.
• We continually aim to understand the needs of our clients.
• We aim to keep our clients fully informed in a clear and fair manner that is unambiguous and not misleading.
• We ensure our services are delivered with clarity and transparency and do not contain hidden conditions or rely on complex technical definitions.
• We will keep an accurate and comprehensive record of all our dealings with a client, so that in the event of any dispute or discrepancy, we will be able to provide a full breakdown of interchanges between all parties.
• We make certain our clients understand the risks associated with our services at the outset of an instruction, where appropriate.
• We work hard to ensure that service and risk information remains clear and prominent at all times.
• In the unlikely event that there is a conflict of interest, we will inform our customers as soon as possible once we become aware of it.

Our Approach

Our priority is to provide our clients with an excellent service underpinned by quality and choice.

Our service is shaped by listening to our clients’ needs and understanding what is important to them. We take responsibility for meeting the needs of our clients and always look for ways to improve the quality of our service.

We aim to treat our clients fairly and deliver high quality services which meet their expectations throughout their relationship with us.

We recognise that our employees are critical to delivering a positive client experience and ensuring our clients are treated fairly. Our culture and values encourage and support our employees to deliver this.

All of our employees are fully trained in dealing with our clients and in treating them fairly. We remunerate and incentivise our employees to encourage them to deal with all clients fairly and to continually find ways to improve.

Complaints Handling

We respond in a timely manner to our clients’ and prospective clients’ questions and queries and address any issues or concerns promptly. All client complaints are dealt with and escalated as appropriate and as required by us in order to meet our obligations to our clients. How we handle these is further detailed in our “Customer Complaints Procedure” policy document.

Our policy is in line with the current guidance from the FCA and is in line with the principles of the FCA that “a firm must pay due regard to the interests of its clients and treat them fairly”.

Senior management will pay attention to the outcome of complaints, which can serve as an important source of intelligence about the health of our business and systems. We will investigate the root causes of complaints and obtain feedback from clients who have experienced our complaints process in order to improve the level of service that we provide.

We will measure the length of time taken to deal with a complaint, the outcome, and the way in which the outcome is communicated to the customer in order to ensure that we are treating our customers fairly.