With the FCA deadline set for the new Consumer Duty for 31 July 2023, bethebrand conducted a survey amongst its clients to understand:

• Firms' state of preparedness for the changes required;
• Observations on how firms were needing to adapt or create marketing assets;
• bethebrand system changes that might be envisaged by the operational and compliance procedures and systems that were anticipated.

The survey showed that firms are in good shape for the deadline. The change projects being undertaken are sophisticated. However, firms' project teams and the bethebrand system's capabilities are both ahead of the Consumer Duty curve.

The survey's main findings showed:

• Firms currently immersed within their consumer Duty change projects, indicating a high degree of proactivity and commitment to the new Consumer Duty;
• A significant, but manageable, incidence of the new Consumer Duty changing the complexity of the portfolio of marketing assets, forms and letters needing to be managed;
• A fair incidence of new marketing assets needing to be created;
• Brand and content rules needing moderate change, indicating a good degree of sophistication and relevance within current rules;
• Where brand and content rules needed changing there was a predominance of reading age, plain English and tone of voice as drivers, indicating that care is being taken to ensure understanding and comprehension by different customer segments;
• The incidence of new or changed workflow requirements being relatively low, indicating fit for purpose/readiness within both firm's internal systems and the bethebrand system;
• A significant incidence of proof reading and checking being a manual process undertaken by qualified staff members, indicating a clear need for technology disruption
• A noted requirement to increase consumer testing and to maintain an audit trail of test outcomes.

How Can We Help You?

If you would like to see the survey findings in more detail or if there is an aspect of your Consumer Duty change project that we can help with, please do not hesitate in contacting me directly

Kind regards

Adam Hainsworth
Chief Executive