Consumer Duty
What is it?
The Consumer Duty is a very significant piece of regulation that sets higher expectations for the standard of care firms across the financial services industry give to consumers in retail financial markets.
It aims to ensure that existing best practice around good outcomes for consumers is applied consistently across the industry.
There are three elements to it:
A new Principle 12 to reflect the overall standard of behaviour required from all firms
- firms must act to deliver good outcomes to customers
Cross Cutting Rules – which permeate across all of the consumer touchpoints in the consumer journey for firms to ensure they:
- Act in good faith towards customers
- Avoid foreseeable harm to customers
- Enable and support customers to pursue their financial objectives
Four outcomes which detail the expectations in key elements of the firm-customer relationship:
- Products and services
- Price and value
- Consumer understanding
- Consumer support
