What exactly does the Financial Conduct Authority expect from your financial institution in the Uk’s financial sector today? Knowing these expectations will certainly help you stay FCA compliant and avoid various problems in the finance industry.
In the rest of this post, you’ll discover the best practices for staying FCA compliant today. You need to understand that this information will only serve as a guide to help you remain compliant with various FCA regulations. To gain in-depth understanding, however, we advise that you hire a reliable compliance consultant, such as MEMA Consultant.
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Consumer duty
The FCA consumer duty, which was introduced in July 2023, includes various requirements for companies operating their businesses in the finance industry. The FCA is treating customers fairly with these requirements, as they help to put an end to rip-off fees and charges that most people encounter.
That’s not all; the FCA consumer duty is designed to enforce financial institutions to create timely and clear information, which allows people to better understand their products and services. Better understanding of products and services will make it a lot easier for customers to make smart financial decisions.
To remain FCA compliant in the aspect of consumer duty, the Financial Conduct Authority requires you to:
- Ensure to review your implementation plan from time to time and ensure you’re making the right changes. Are these changes going far enough and delivering the expected outcomes for consumers?
- In the aspect of your data and monitoring processes, ensure to check that you’ve captured the necessary data to improve your products and services for better outcomes.
- You also need to take your internal assessment very seriously. At least, once a year, your institution needs to perform an internal assessment to ascertain you’re delivering great outcomes for the consumers.
In case you need more guidance on how to remain FCA compliant with the consumer duty, we recommend that you hire a reliable compliant consultant, such as MEMA Consultant.
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Consumer feedback matters a lot
If there’s one thing you need to know about how to remain FCA compliant, it’s certainly that you should never joke with customer feedback, be it good or bad. The FCA is aware that customer feedback can help them better understand various issues faced by consumers in the finance industry. As such, the Financial Conduct Authority requires you to collect the data (customer feedback) regularly for review purposes. In addition, you also need to train your staff on the best ways to deal with negative customer feedback.
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The need for accurate data
Submission of accurate and correct information in a timely manner is very important if you certainly want to be FCA compliant. In most cases, the FCA often goes through this data without even letting you know about it. They mostly check the data to identify issues and patterns in your financial institution’s data. It’s also a good practice to check your firm’s data from time to time to identify these patterns and report them early enough before the FCA notices them.
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The need to understand various FCA regulations in your institution
For you to maintain FCA compliance for as long as possible, you certainly need to do all you can to make sure all parties in your company understand various FCA regulations and exactly what they need to do to comply with them. To do this, you certainly need to get the FCA handbook, familiarize yourself with regulations relating to your type of business, and then train your staff on how to adhere to the regulations.
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Work with a compliant consultant
Working with a reputable compliant expert can also help your company to stay FCA compliant for as long as you want. One reliable company you certainly can trust today is MEMA Consultant. This compliant consultant has the necessary tools and expertise to assist you in tackling various compliance challenges you may be facing.