The Model Office Blog

Navigating the FCA Consumer Duty: Are Firms Delivering on Ongoing Services?

[fa icon="calendar'] Feb 19, 2024 4:02:53 PM / by Chris Davies posted in Financial regulation, Financial business development, fintech, client engagement, regtech, Risk management, practice management, FCA, compliance, consumer duty

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The FCA are hitting 2024 ground running with their latest data request to 20 select advise firms. The focus for on-going series means the FCA is adamant firms need to 'walk their talk' when it comes to segmentation, ensuring products and services continually meet client needs and objectives and annual suitability review meetings are conducted if paid for, if they have been paid for and not delivered then firms need to refund this cost!

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Regulatory horizon scanning: A Closer Look at the UK Financial Conduct Authority's 2024 Incoming Regulations

[fa icon="calendar'] Jan 11, 2024 9:28:05 AM / by Chris Davies posted in Financial regulation, Financial business development, fintech, client engagement, regtech, Risk management, practice management, FCA, compliance, consumer duty

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As we embark on 2024, the UK financial landscape is poised for transformation, with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) leading the way. In this blog post, we'll delve into key regulatory topics proposed by the FCA for the year ahead. For an FCA view on their regulatory pipeline, you can view their Regulatory Initiatives Grid here.

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The FCA's new pro-active approach to supervision

[fa icon="calendar'] Nov 15, 2023 2:56:44 PM / by Chris Davies posted in Financial regulation, Financial business development, fintech, client engagement, regtech, Risk management, practice management, FCA, compliance, consumer duty

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In a pivotal move on November 8, 2023, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) issued a yet another "Dear CEO" letter this time addressed to wealth managers and stockbrokers, outlining critical Consumer Duty driven directives and expectations. This letter comes at a crucial juncture, signalling a new, proactive ‘targeted, intrusive and assertive’ FCA stance to supervision and oversight. Given the Consumer Duty is now demanding firms take a holistic and data driven approach to evidencing constructive conduct, competence and culture, we are already witnessing financial advice firms receiving unsolicited information requests to gain evidence for;

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A RegTech view on St James's Place move to cancel exit fees

[fa icon="calendar'] Oct 20, 2023 11:37:26 AM / by Chris Davies posted in Financial regulation, Financial business development, fintech, client engagement, regtech, Risk management, practice management, FCA, compliance, consumer duty

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While may will view St. James's Place's (SJP) decision to cancel exit fees in response to the Financial Conduct Authority's (FCA) Consumer Duty as long overdue, it's essential to view this move more critically. If we look under a few rocks, there are some interesting perspectives we have come up with as to why SJP (and other industry monoliths) may have made this decision:

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The Consumer Duty and 7 steps to Proof of Value

[fa icon="calendar'] May 12, 2023 10:54:36 AM / by Chris Davies posted in Financial regulation, Financial business development, fintech, Human resource development, client engagement, regtech, Risk management, practice management, FCA, AI, compliance, consumer duty, artificial intelligence

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The latest FCA review of firm’s consumer duty implementation process has highlighted key concerns across a well-used regulatory tool that of proof of value (POV). Given that evidencing fair value across the Duty’s second outcome is highly subjective this was always going to be a big challenge for adviser firms.

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The FCA 2023 - 2024 Business plan

[fa icon="calendar'] Apr 6, 2023 3:36:54 PM / by Chris Davies posted in Financial regulation, Financial business development, fintech, Human resource development, client engagement, regtech, Risk management, practice management, FCA, AI, compliance, consumer duty, artificial intelligence

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The FCA's 2023/2024 business plan outlines three key priorities: protecting consumers, ensuring market integrity, and promoting competition. Let's take a closer look at each of these priorities.

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What is generative AI?

[fa icon="calendar'] Mar 8, 2023 8:47:11 AM / by Chris Davies posted in Financial regulation, Financial business development, fintech, Human resource development, client engagement, regtech, Constructive compliance, Risk management, practice management, FCA, AI, artificial intelligence

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Artificial Intelligence (AI) has come a long way in the past few decades. Today, AI is capable of performing a wide range of tasks, from recognizing objects in images and translating languages to playing games and driving cars. However, one of the most exciting and rapidly developing areas of AI is generative AI, which aims to create new content, rather than simply analysing or recognising existing content.

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What's all the ChatGPT about?

[fa icon="calendar'] Feb 9, 2023 9:13:32 AM / by Chris Davies posted in Financial regulation, Financial business development, fintech, Human resource development, client engagement, regtech, Constructive compliance, Risk management, practice management, FCA

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As ever with Elon Musk, he creates plenty of noise with his ventures. Whether it’s sending cars into space, letting Trump back  onto Twitter, Musk sets a certain tone across industries. So it is for Artificial Intelligence with his Open AI venture which launched ChatGPT3 in November 2022.

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Foreseeable Harm, the key to Consumer Duty compliance

[fa icon="calendar'] Jan 10, 2023 12:13:20 PM / by Chris Davies posted in Benchmark, compliance, client centric, Financial regulation, Financial business development, fintech, Human resource development, client engagement, regtech, Constructive compliance, Risk management, practice management, FCA, consumer_duty

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As market participants across the distribution chain now grapple with the next deadline (30th April ’23) for product manufacturers to have clear communications and information provided to adviser (distributor) firms for them to meet the Duty obligations, they should look to one of the cross-cutting rules to help them gain context for what the regulator requires when it comes to data and information for Consumer Duty compliance.

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The Consumer Duty Final Countdown

[fa icon="calendar'] Sep 30, 2022 3:10:27 PM / by Chris Davies posted in Benchmark, compliance, client centric, Financial regulation, Financial business development, fintech, Human resource development, client engagement, regtech, Constructive compliance, Risk management, practice management, FCA, Consumerduty

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With our research showing only 1 in 4 firms taking action on the Consumer Duty and a month to go until the first October 31st deadline, it is probably worth retail advice firm’s sense checking where they are and what they need to do to ensure they have plans in place to assess their competence against this all-encompassing regulatory framework.

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