Digitalized pathways for marketing financial products to non-professional clients: key anticipation points for distributors

For nearly 10 years, the digitalization of the marketing pathways for financial products has received particular attention from the French Autorité de Contrôle Prudentiel et de Résolution (ACPR) and the Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF). Beyond the studies conducted by these two supervisory authorties and their joint ACPR/AMF division, this focus has notably led to consumer tests or mystery visits, as well as a spot on the AMF’s list of priorities for supervision and control.

In this context, following the AMF’s announcement of a SPOT supervisory and control priority focused, for 2025, on digitalized pathways offered to non-professional clients—it seems timely to revisit the main regulatory aspects that relevant distributors, whether they be investment service providers, investment firms, asset management companies, financial investment advisors, or insurance intermediaries, should carefully consider.

Focus Point no. 1: Promotional Communications presented to Clients upon accessing the Distributors’ Websites

Distributors must especially ensure that the following are present:

• A balance between the advantages and risks related to acquiring the product or service offered.
• Accessibility and comprehensibility of pricing terms.
• Clear, accurate, and non-misleading content of all promotional communications, and
• Compliance with rules related to communications on past performance.

The regulator considers multichannel practices to present advantages for improving the support provided to non-professional clients, especially to provide understanding of the products and services offered by the distributor.

Focus Point no. 2: Pre-contractual Information provided to Clients

It is important to ensure that:

• Such information is accessible and not scattered.
• Its content and the vocabulary used are suitable for the targeted client base, and
• Rules on handling client complaints are appropriately applied.

Rules related to remote marketing, especially respecting a reflection period, must also be thoroughly grasped.

Focus Point no.3: Collecting Information related to Clients and their Inquiries

On this point, the regulator will likely focus on:

• Explanations provided by distributors regarding the importance and purpose of client evaluation questionnaires.
• Precision of questions concerning the clients’ situation and risk profile, and
• Clarity of warning messages for clients when providing the service of order reception and transmission (i.e., warning that the client is about to act entirely independently without prior advice).

Focus Point no.4: Assisting Clients throughout the Different Steps of the Digital Pathway

Distributors must ensure the availability of means provided to clients to guide them through the marketing pathway, appropriate training for advisors, and the relevance of educational actions on financial savings offered to clients (educational documents sent to clients should not, in any event, influence the answers provided in questionnaires).

Additionally, regulators may also focus on other specific topics, such as:

• Innovative, cross-border digital offers or offers involving complex financial instruments (these offers in particular must be closely supervised, and distributors need to be cautious about the content of the information provided to clients).
• Automated investment advice (relevance of algorithms used, human involvement, non-standardized nature of the advice provided).
• “Gamification” of client relationships (i.e., integration of elements from the video game field into non-gaming contexts), or
• Specifics of digital pathways on mobile devices, with close attention paid to regulatory challenges related to improving user experience, marketing strategies, commercial innovations, and financial education.

Experts’ Opinion

The main challenge for distributors is to reconsider the aforementioned regulatory obligations not merely as constraints, but as opportunities to deepen their understanding of their clientele and identify new commercial opportunities. If wisely adopted, this change of perspective should enable the optimization of financial product distribution more closely aligned to the clients’ actual goals and needs. Thus, when the client’s profile allows it, it becomes possible to offer products that might be more relevant for achieving their objectives than, for example, regulated savings products, term accounts, and ordinary savings accounts, which remain relatively low-yield (these still represent a significant share of French clients’ financial investments).