The consistency index is designed to flag Risk Tolerance assessments that might have been responded to in an unusual way.
There are three categories:
- green or ‘generally consistent’;
- amber or ‘potentially consistent’; and
- red or ‘probably inconsistent’.
Investors are assigned an amber or a red rating when the overall pattern of their responses is atypical. It is not always possible, therefore, to identify a specific ‘inconsistent’ response.
An amber or a red index doesn’t necessarily mean that any answers were ‘wrong’ or that the assessment needs to be repeated.
Instead, these results should be explored through discussion with the client, to establish whether it would be advisable to adjust their Suitable Risk Level to reflect what they feel (documenting both that this has happened, and the rationale for it).
The consistency results are not played back to the client during the assessment, and they are not shown on the client version of the PDF. Instead, the results are only visible on the client page and full PDF, so advisers can decide how best to discuss the result with the client.
Consistency is only based on the risk tolerance related questions in the questionnaire. You can get an amber score either by answering the same thing for every question or by having a medium consistency. If the text says "You have selected the same answer for every question." Then it means that they answered the same answer for all the RT questions, but not necessarily all the Financial Personality Questions.