Tracking Consumer Duty outcomes using Google Trends

Last week, FCA CEO, Nikhil Rathi appealed to attendees of the FCA's Annual Public Meeting to continue to come up with inventive ways to track consumer outcomes. With the challenge fresh in mind, we went away and built a tool that could potentially help do just that. Using a database of around 90 search terms, and industry benchmark, and Google Trends, our Consumer Duty Search Index looks at how consumers are using search to support them. Today, we dive into the key findings! Chapters 00:00 Introduction and episode overview 02:33 Applying Google Trends to financial services and consumer duty 03:56 What is Google Trends and how does it work? 06:08 Using Google Trends to track flu symptoms and outbreaks 10:12 Building a search term database for consumer outcomes 13:15 Key findings on search trends in finance 15:21 Case studies: market reactions to events 16:26 Search trends related to vulnerability and scams 16:52 Impact of news cycles on search behavior 19:58 Using search data for regulatory insights and firm strategy 28:58 How firms can leverage search trend data 37:29 The role of AI and LLMs in consumer search behavior 38:44 Limitations and future potential of search data 40:41 Conclusion and next steps for firms and regulators