The UK Financial Conduct Authority’s new consumer duty comes into force (for most purposes) on 31 July 2023. This will require firms to act to deliver good outcomes for retail customers.
Whilst much has been said about the consumer duty, the FCA’s focus is now on ensuring firms properly implementing it. To help, the FCA published an update on 28 June 2023. It included ten questions for firms to consider:
1. Are you satisfied your products and services are well designed to meet the needs of consumers in the target market, and perform as expected? What testing has been conducted?
2. Do your products or services have features that could risk harm for groups of customers with characteristics of vulnerability? If so, what changes to the design of your products and services are you making?
3. What action have you taken as a result of your fair value assessments, and how are you ensuring this action is effective in improving consumer outcomes?
4. What data, MI and other intelligence are you using to monitor the fair value of your products and services on an ongoing basis?
5. How are you testing the effectiveness of your communications? How are you acting on these results?
6. How do you adapt your communications to meet the needs of customers with characteristics of vulnerability, and how do you know these adaptions are effective?
7. What assessment have you made about whether your customer support is meeting the needs of customers with characteristics of vulnerability? What data, MI and customer feedback is being used to support this assessment?
8. How have you satisfied yourself that the quality and availability of any post-sale support you have is as good as your pre-sale support?
9. Do individuals throughout your firm – including those in control and support functions – understand their role and responsibility in delivering the Duty?
10. Have you identified the key risks to your ability to deliver good outcomes to customers and put appropriate mitigants in place?
This is not, of course, a ‘checklist’ but it does give a useful insight into the FCA’s priorities.