Consumer duty  

FCA: Most consumer duty compliant firms have engaged leadership

“That was one of the key areas that we wanted to see coming out of the duty,” Mills said.

“In specific terms though some of the improvements that we have seen and we would like to see more coming through are firms looking at charges. So additional charges that consumers might not be aware of when they enter into contracts, looking at fees and reducing those fees.”

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He explained the regulator has seen some focus on complaints, so firms ensuring they are responding to complaints and their complaints processes are in place.

It also saw an improvement in firms' understanding of their target markets and their customer bases.

In particular, firms have improved in looking at customers with vulnerable characteristics and getting the right forms of data, technological systems to identify those and support those customers. 

“Those are some of the improvements that we've seen,” he said. 

“The area which all firms will need to improve upon is in that use of data in order to demonstrate the outcomes that you would expect from both the products and services that are supplied, but also the processes and that consumer journey that goes through each of the products and services that they're that they're supplying.”

sonia.rach@ft.com

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