Browse all articles across people aspects of regulation and people development within UK financial services
The advice gap and support of retail consumers is something I have written about before and it remains a hot topic for the FCA. Apparently, 17th June was National Eat your Vegetable Day (who knew!!?
I think that for many people, Consumer Duty seems to have been with us forever. It is only two years ago that we were putting together our implementation plans.
This year promises to be a pivotal year for firms as they continue to embed Consumer Duty (CD). Let me explain my thinking. Firstly, it will soon be two years from the introduction of the regulation.
The latest set of studies from the FCA about the effectiveness of embedding Consumer Duty (CD) in firms makes familiar reading. Essentially, it’s a story of mixed performance in the FCA’s eyes as far as embedding consumer duty is concerned.
Okay, this is now my third article – part one and part two are here – where I attempt to predict what the Training & Competence (T&C) landscape is going to look like in the forthcoming year. I guess I must start by holding myself to account for the predictions made in January 2024.
Has anyone else noticed a change of tone coming out of the FCA these days? I remember the days when the ‘principles based’ regulator was exactly that, and all the outputs were at a high level leaving firms to work out proportionate responses, relevant to their individual business model.
Can you give me a breakdown of your current client database? How have you categorised your clients? How many of your clients give you repeat business or referrals? How many leads have not resulted in new business, do you know why? How have you sub categorised your vulnerable customers?
The first anniversary of the Consumer Duty (CD) regulation has now passed, with board reports and attestations of conformance having all been signed-off. But now is not a time to relax, rather an opportunity to double down on actions and initiatives to continue to embed the challenges of the Duty into your organisation.
“Consumer Duty that will set higher and clearer standards of consumer protection across financial services and require firms to put their customers’ needs first.”1 13 months on from the launch of the Consumer Duty, it is forcing change – but have firms truly grasped the message or are they simply repackaging previous practices?
The Consumer Duty was introduced to set new, higher standards for firms to adhere to, requiring those who operate in the financial services industry to consider customer outcomes in all circumstances. It requires firms to be open and honest, avoid causing foreseeable harm, and support consumers to achieve their financial goals.
There has been a lot written about vulnerability; how we assess clients for vulnerability, how we train our people to spot it and deal with it, how we record this.
We are often asked how to build or structure a T&C scheme or Competence framework. To build a robust scheme use these framework elements. These are based on both the TC sourcebook and industry best practice. Larger firms should try to satisfy all the indicators within each element.
