Consumer Duty - Less than a month to go!

With less than a month to go until the Consumer Duty comes into force on 31 July 2023, it is crucial that businesses are asking themselves the proper questions, reflecting on the right things, and having the honest discussions to ensure that they can maximise the remaining days left before the 31 July 2023 deadline.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) recently highlighted 10 crucial questions firms should be asking themselves:

1. Are you satisfied that 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, management information (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? And 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 adaptations 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 mitigation measures in place?

These questions are likely to help businesses to reflect on their implementation to date of the Consumer Duty, allowing them to identify areas for improvement. The FCA have also commented that these are the questions they are likely to ask firms themselves. We know that the FCA is taking a tough stance to enforcement of the Consumer Duty and so it is important that firms are ready and prepared to respond to requests by the FCA.

Take a look at our Consumer Duty Hub to find out more.

https://www.fca.org.uk/news/news-stories/one-month-go-consumer-duty