Banks call it a plethora. Regulators call it a challenge. Consumers call it confusing. But when you sit down with someone who has tried to weigh up two credit card deals or decode an investment platform’s terms, the blush of bewilderment is real and personal.
Earlier this year, a consumer advocacy group analysed the terms and conditions of major financial products in the UK and found what felt like an indictment of the industry at large: travel insurance and investment policy documents reading like novellas, with word counts rivaling some of the classic literature on your bookshelf. These weren’t short blurbs but lengthy texts that, for millions of customers, demand a reading age and patience few actually have.
When the Financial Conduct Authority introduced its Consumer Duty in 2023, the idea was straightforward enough: financial firms should help customers make informed decisions with clear, fair, and non‑misleading communications. In practice, though, this has often felt like putting a fresh coat of paint on an already elaborate maze. Signs of improvement — in jargon reduction or readability — have been glacial at best.
Most people don’t wake up thinking they want a complex product. They wake up thinking they need to save for retirement, insure their home, or pick a credit card that doesn’t quietly gouge them on fees. Yet the very way these products are packaged and described — long strings of legalese, layered fees hidden in footnotes, and performance metrics that assume fluency in finance — can make an ordinary choice feel like a PhD thesis. And that friction isn’t accidental; it’s structural. Regulators note that strategic complexity — complicated pricing structures, opaque charges, and ineffective disclosure — can make it hard for consumers to compare even straightforward options.
I remember watching a friend’s face when he said aloud, “So I pay this much only if the balance hits that rate after 30 days, unless it’s transferred, then it changes again?” There was genuine surprise, followed by frustration. That kind of moment — one sentence of exasperation — captures what many encounter when stepping beyond the simplest of accounts.
Part of this stems from the sheer fragmentation of modern finance. A recent survey found that the average consumer juggles not just a handful of bank accounts but often a constellation of credit cards, loans, buy‑now‑pay‑later accounts, insurance policies, savings pots, and investment platforms spread across different providers. More than a quarter of consumers manage eight or more financial relationships — a complexity not just in numbers but in behaviour and choice.
The implications are more than academic. Complaints to the UK’s Financial Ombudsman Service about financial products have surged — by around 70% in one recent period — with credit cards and motor finance leading the pack. Directors at consumer groups have pointed out that many of these complaints stem not from malicious intent but from consumers feeling “caught out” by a product’s design or fee structure.
Regulation, of course, is trying to catch up. The UK government has moved to bring buy‑now‑pay‑later providers into the same legal framework as traditional credit, imposing affordability checks and clearer refund terms. It’s an acknowledgment that markets left to their own devices — particularly fast‑moving digital ones — create conditions where consumers can accumulate debt without fully understanding what they’ve signed up for.
Yet even as regulation nudges disclosure standards higher, the human capacity to understand what’s on the page hasn’t kept pace. A notable number of adults in England are classified as “functionally illiterate” when it comes to complex or unfamiliar text — not a critique of intelligence, but a realistic reflection of how dense financial writing can be.
At the core of the problem is a disconnect between product innovation and genuine usability. Finance firms, driven by competition, seek differentiation through features, pricing tweaks, or bundled services. Consumers, meanwhile, just want to know: is this product reasonable? Is this fair? And most importantly, which option is right for me? Yet traditional segmentation and mass marketing have yet to be matched by true personalisation or clear communication that helps people answer those questions.
This isn’t just about literacy. It’s about trust. Recent research shows that one in three UK consumers have experienced unexpected charges, and such surprises have a powerful impact on trust — with many leaving providers because of them. Beyond fees, concerns about digital security and platforms that appear inscrutable build an emotional toll that’s hard to quantify but easy to feel.
And then there’s the emotional geography of finance itself. When you ask someone about their pension, they might talk about hopes or fears decades down the line. Ask them about the fine print on an investment platform’s fee schedule and you often get a shrug or silence. People think in terms of goals and fears; products think in terms of features and returns. The gap between those worlds is where confusion lives.
There are modest signals of change. Some firms are experimenting with clearer summaries, interactive tools, and personalised guidance. Regulators are pushing harder on fair value assessments and suitability. Consumer education campaigns are trying to improve financial capability. But the inertia of decades of entrenched communication practices means progress is incremental.
What gets overlooked in tech planning — whether at a bank, a fintech, or within regulatory circles — is that complexity isn’t just a technical feature you can subtract with better software or clearer fonts. It’s a cultural and structural artefact, built as much from competitive dynamics, product design incentives, and risk‑averse legal departments as it is from regulatory lag. Understanding that requires not just data but empathy for the person on the other side of a contract.