“Today, the Consumer Duty, a regulatory framework that aims to enhance consumer protection and transparency in the financial services industry, comes into force. A year has now passed since the final rules and guidelines were published for what is the most significant change in conduct regulation in the last two decades. Does the work stop now? Hardly. To plagiarise a relevant quote, today is perhaps ‘the end of the beginning’.”
“The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has asked boards to answer ten questions to assess their level of compliance with the Duty. Those answers will inevitably drive more work to comply and/or enhance delivery of good outcomes to customers, as will the regulators’ active fact-finding efforts on how firms have complied, and their commitment to taking enforcement action for non-compliance from ‘day one’.”
“The four strands of activity we expect to see from firms now are:
“Ultimately, the FCA will measure the industry’s success in applying the Duty, not by the colour coding of its MI dashboards, but by the practical changes it sees firms taking to improve products and services. This will place those businesses that have chosen simply to rebrand their current arrangements as Duty compliant at most risk.”
News release
Consumer Duty 31 July deadline – Grant Thornton reactive comment
31 Jul 2023
“Today, the Consumer Duty, a regulatory framework that aims to enhance consumer protection and transparency in the financial services industry, comes into force. A year has now passed since the final rules and guidelines were published for what is the most significant change in conduct regulation in the last two decades. Does the work stop now? Hardly. To plagiarise a relevant quote, today is perhaps ‘the end of the beginning’.”
“The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has asked boards to answer ten questions to assess their level of compliance with the Duty. Those answers will inevitably drive more work to comply and/or enhance delivery of good outcomes to customers, as will the regulators’ active fact-finding efforts on how firms have complied, and their commitment to taking enforcement action for non-compliance from ‘day one’.”
“The four strands of activity we expect to see from firms now are:
“Ultimately, the FCA will measure the industry’s success in applying the Duty, not by the colour coding of its MI dashboards, but by the practical changes it sees firms taking to improve products and services. This will place those businesses that have chosen simply to rebrand their current arrangements as Duty compliant at most risk.”