Interaction Boosts Understanding: Deploying Video Recaps for Consumer Duty‑Grade Communications

When the Consumer Duty landed, the FCA included a line that keeps compliance officers awake at night: firms must “test, monitor and adapt communications to support understanding.”

Sending a PDF, or hosting a one‑way “explainer” video, achieves none of those things.  The regulator’s follow up challenge is even sharper: you must “assess, test, understand and are able to evidence the outcomes their customers are receiving.”  Evidence, not intention, is the new currency. It goes on to say “without this it will be impossible for firms to know their products or services are working”.

The standard for financial communication has changed. The bar is no longer just about sending clear information, it's about proving your customers understood it. Whether you're supporting Consumer Duty compliance, reducing support volumes, or improving customer trust, interactivity is fast becoming a very effective lever for raising comprehension.

At Video Canvas, we’ve developed a new feature designed to meet that bar: Video Recap.

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Why interaction matters more than format

To test how interactivity affects financial communication, we conducted a structured user study with 54 participants. Each participant received a fictional financial communication about an investment fund—designed to reflect typical product updates in language, format, and data complexity.

We created four formats presenting exactly the same information:

1. Paper (letter-style, baseline)
2. Video Only (passive explainer)
3. Video Canvas (interactive player, navigation enabled)
4. Video with Recap (comprehension Recap at the end)

We then measured two key outcomes:

• Understanding — based on correct answers to factual questions about the content.
• Engagement — based on self-rated scores (1–10) for how enjoyable and clear the experience felt.

Understanding scores:

• Paper: 68% correct (baseline)
• Video Only: 82% (+20% vs paper)
• Video Canvas: 90% (+32% vs paper)
• Video with Recap: 98% (+44% vs paper)

Engagement scores:

• Paper: 7.0 / 10 (baseline)
• Video Only: 4.67 / 10 (–33% vs paper)
• Video Canvas: 8.31 / 10 (+18% vs paper)
• Video with Recap: 7.67 / 10 (+10% vs paper)

Key takeaway: interactivity dramatically improves outcomes. Formats with interactive elements (Video Canvas, Recap) consistently outperformed passive formats—both in comprehension and engagement.

This reflects broader findings from our customer research: when asked about typical financial communications:

• 86% of participants preferred clear, data-driven presentations over traditional animated video.

Reasons for preference:

• Ease of understanding — straightforward formats made financial data more accessible.
• Efficiency — seeing key data upfront, without waiting through animations.
• Professionalism — clear formats felt more trustworthy.
• Control & interactivity — being able to navigate at their own pace enhanced understanding.
  

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What makes recaps different?

Recaps turns a passive video into an active learning experience. At a key point - usually the end of a short, personalised chapter, a viewer is invited to answer a series of simple questions. There’s no way to “fail”. Instead, viewers get immediate feedback, reinforcing key points and creating a record of understanding.

This mirrors what the science of learning has shown for decades: retrieval practice (answering a question) dramatically outperforms passive reading or watching. In one academic study, learners retained 50% more information when asked just a single question. And according to the FCA, turning information into a Q&A format improved customer understanding by 36%. This aligns with our findings.

Recap doesn’t turn disclosure into a game. It applies the same learning logic that makes platforms like Duolingo so sticky: micro-interaction, positive reinforcement, and cognitive engagement.

And if that sounds too abstract, think back to a toddler placing a block into a shaped hole: try, adjust, succeed, remember. That’s recap in a nutshell.

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How recaps works inside Video Canvas

Recap is fully integrated into the Video Canvas experience. It appears seamlessly at the end of relevant chapters, whether it’s explaining pension benefits, portfolio reviews or investment performance.

All recap interactions are captured and time stamped as part of your customer event data. You decide what to do with that insight: plug it into your dashboards, flag it for compliance, or trigger follow up actions. The result? A reliable and secure way to prove engagement and reinforce learning.

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Already have video content? Use Video Recaps there too.

Recap is now also available as a standalone player for organisations that already have explainer videos or marketing content. If your existing videos are doing a good job on their own, Video Recap can make them even better by adding evidence backed comprehension layers.

To explore how recap could enhance your current video library, talk to the Video Canvas team. We’ll walk you through how to deploy Video Recap and get better results without re‑shooting your content.

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Recap in the wild: what our customers are doing

• Heywood Technology deploys recaps at the end of the Video Canvas personalised pension videos they provide to local government pensions schemes. Engagement with their pensions portals has increased as much as 80%. 
• M&G uses recaps at the end of their PruFund explainer videos to provide evidence of client understanding.
• Railpen are using recaps with their video annual benefit statements to ensure members understand their pension benefits. 

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Designed for compliance and for people

Every recap interaction is:

1. Private by design – no data leaves your infrastructure
2. Accessible – WCAG-compliant with optional audio, captions, and high-contrast colour modes
3. Trackable – emits engagement and comprehension events you can capture (Consumer Duty Gold)

Recap isn’t just a learning tool, it’s a great way to highlight the key takeaways from a video.

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The next step in financial communication

Video Canvas already gives you a secure, personalised and engaging way to talk to your customers. With Video Recap, we’ve added a smart, elegant mechanism to check understanding at scale.

Ready to explore Video Recap for your existing or future video content? Talk to us today.