Consumer Duty Champions

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The FCA’s new Consumer Duty is a significant and overarching regulatory change for firms with retail and SME consumers. This regulation has specific emphasis on the roles and responsibilities of the Board, and in particular, a new Board role of Consumer Duty Champion.

As a new role it is still evolving and developing. Some of the topics include, thinking about how this role interacts with executive functions, what championing consumer outcomes really means and some of the risks and challenges faced by Champions.

This course is aimed at those who are, or are considering a Board Champion role, and want to understand what the regulatory requirements are, up to date views on embedding the consumer duty, key risks for Boards to consider, and current regulatory developments. This course aims to be interactive with opportunities for debate and discussion of topics raised by attendees.

The course will be focused on Investment Management business models. The course will cover some hot topics in more depth, for example, MI and fair value assessments.

Key Learning Objectives:

• To understand the regulatory requirements and expectations of the Consumer Duty Board Champion in a BAU/embedding environment
• To explore and debate the nature, extent and functions of the role in the context of both Board independence, good governance and risk management
• To understand the requirements for annual attestation of compliance by Boards
• Update on current thinking, risks and developments as the Consumer Duty starts to embed in businesses
• Sharing industry insights, good practice and lessons learned based on practical experience
• Updating and sharing insights about FCA supervisory visits on Consumer Duty
• Update on IA developments and initiatives

Contact the IA Training Team to ask questions regarding any of the courses we run, or if you are experiencing problems or difficulties when attempting to register, please email: Training@theia.org

09.30 Start

• Housekeeping, introductions, course agenda and objectives

10.00 Consumer Duty – overview of regulatory requirements

• A brief reminder of the objectives of the Consumer Duty and regulatory requirements for Boards and Board Champions
• Explaining any regulatory developments since 31 July, including any insights from supervisory visits
• Explain requirements for annual attestation of compliance by the Board and discuss how this is being approached by firms in the AM sector
• Explain the genesis and purpose of the Consumer Duty Board Champion role and discuss this in comparison to the expectations of the Board as a whole and the roles of executive management/SMCR holders
• Discuss challenges and experiences of the role including where the role sits within the governance framework, interface with a firms Risk framework, differences between large and small firms, include how this has changed in a BAU environment.
• Update on IA developments and initiatives

11.00 Coffee break

11.15 Role of the Board Champion

• Following on from the previous session, consider how the role interfaces between the Board and executive whilst maintaining independence
• What is the champions role vs that of the Board?
• Discuss how the transition to BAU has operated with observations and insights on challenges for embedding
• Consider what the Champion needs to perform the role, with a particular focus on management information and reporting. What does good outcomes focused MI look like? With industry insights on reporting frameworks. How to address regulatory requirements such as foreseeable harm through the risk infrastructure.
• Insights and discussion common and current areas of risk, gaps and areas to watch linking back to any current regulatory developments.
• Add any thoughts from the IA on developments or IA initiatives

12.30 Deep dive into topic areas

• Price and Value is a hot topic in the context of the cost of living crisis
• Scope questions for firms with influence over retail consumers but no retail consumers
• Relationships between distributors and manufacturers, what are the expectations about obtaining information and data
• Open questions and discussion based on interests of the group

1pm – Finish.

Consumer Duty Board Champions, those considering a Board champion role, other Board members. This also may be of interest to CRO, CCO and Board Secretariats.  

Alison Barker

Alison Barker is a Special Regulatory Adviser within BDO’s Financial Services Advisory practice. Alison is a regulatory expert with deep understanding of the UK financial regulatory regimes and approach and has been helping to lead BDO’s work on the Consumer Duty. Prior to working at BDO, Alison spent over 12 years at the FCA, having previously worked in KPMG’s regulatory practice and TSB Bank plc.

Lucy Gallagher

Lucy Gallagher is an Associate Director within BDO’s Financial Services Advisory practice with a focus on Asset Managers. Lucy has significant experience in this sector across a range of regulatory topics including Consumer Duty, MiFID implementation and governance, systems and controls projects.

IA Member £395.00 +VAT
Non-Member £545.00 +VAT

Pay using a credit card online, or if you wish to be invoiced please email your full details to: Training@theia.org

PLEASE NOTE: Full payment for the course must be made prior to the course commencement date.

• Any cancellation must be made in writing.
• For all cancellation received 15-30 days prior to the course start date, 50% of the course fee is still payable.
• No refund is given for a cancellation made 14 days or less prior to the commencement of a course.
• Transferring from one course to another is treated as a cancellation. You can substitute one delegate for another at no additional cost. In this instance, please give two business days’ notice.

Hybrid Training Courses:

Hybrid deliveries of our training allows participants on our courses the option to attend in-person here from our offices at Camomile Court, or you can attend virtually via MS Teams.

Please be advised a training course could change from hybrid delivery to solely virtual delivery. In such an event, we will inform delegates at least one week prior to the course delivery date.

There are a limited number of in-person spaces available on this course and this will be allocated on a first come first served basis.