Webinar Recap: Understanding the Consumer Duty’s outcomes

What happened?

TCC hosted a webinar with Recordsure, featuring Ex-FCA supervisor Olivia Fahy alongside guest speakers, exploring why the Consumer Duty goes well beyond the existing Treating Customers Fairly (TCF) regime.

The panel summarised the FCA’s expectations into three key preparations: aligning compliance activity with deliverability, understanding the regulator’s more interventionist supervisory style, and building a workable data strategy.

The FCA confirmed it has already asked several firms to present their Implementation Plans for scrutiny, signalling that progress will be actively monitored in the run-up to the July 2023 deadline.

Why does it matter?

Firms often draw comparisons between the Consumer Duty and TCF, but the panel was clear these are fundamentally different regimes in both structure and enforcement.

The Consumer Duty combines a consumer principle, cross-cutting rules and four outcomes, and the FCA has said non-compliance will carry stringent penalties, from interventionist powers and fines to Section 166 investigations.

Rather than a single dedicated audit, compliance checks will be woven into the regulator’s existing supervision, meaning every touchpoint with the FCA now has the potential to inform Consumer Duty assessment.

Who is affected?

Larger ‘fixed’ firms should expect their named supervisors to gather outcomes information as part of routine oversight, while smaller firms are more likely to be picked up through issue-focused, multi-firm checks.

Any firm authorised or seeking authorisation needs a workable data strategy, since the FCA expects data usage to be built into how compliance is evidenced from the outset.

Key risks

• Being unable to evidence outcomes when asked, given there is no single Consumer Duty test to prepare for.
• Underestimating the reputational and financial impact of supervisory enforcement or Section 166 investigations.
• Treating the 31 July 2023 deadline as an end point rather than an ongoing obligation.

Actions to take

1. Make all colleagues aware of the process and policy changes required before July 2023.
2. Task working groups with detailing what, when and how changes will be implemented.
3. Build a data strategy that supports vulnerability monitoring, conduct risk and customer outcomes evidencing.

Wider implications

The panel suggested the Consumer Duty is partly a response to criticism that the FCA has not always been proactive enough, repositioning the regulator as more interventionist.

That shift means firms should expect scrutiny to continue well beyond the initial deadline, with the regulator maintaining pressure through ordinary supervisory activity rather than a fixed audit cycle.

Recommendations

Treat 31 July 2023 as a starting point for cultural change rather than a compliance finish line, and keep working groups active on implementation detail beyond that date.

Prioritise the data capabilities needed to monitor vulnerability, conduct risk and customer outcomes, since this underpins how the FCA expects firms to evidence the Duty.