One month to go for the Consumer Duty – The FCA’s ten questions to consider

By Pritpal Virdee

On 28 June 2023, the FCA published a press release highlighting ten key questions for firms to consider in light of the Consumer Duty coming into force next month. Taken from the FCA’s consumer duty finalised guidance (FG22/5) published in July 2022, these questions are intended to help firms reflect on their implementation of the Consumer Duty and identify gaps or areas for improvement.

Key Questions

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?

The FCA has stated that firms can and should expect to be asked questions like these in their interactions with the FCA. 

For further UK financial services regulatory updates, please visit the Burges Salmon blog.