Consumer Duty, explained in plain English — and properly embedded.
Consumer Duty isn't a one-off document to produce and file away — it's an ongoing standard the FCA expects to see reflected in how your business actually runs. We help small firms and sole traders meet it properly, proportionate to their size.
What "good outcomes" actually means in practice.
The FCA assesses Consumer Duty against four outcomes. Here's what each one actually asks of your business:
- Products and services — are they fit for purpose and designed for a genuine customer need?
- Price and value — does what customers pay represent fair value for what they get?
- Consumer understanding — can customers actually understand your communications, not just technically receive them?
- Consumer support — is it as easy to get help or complain as it was to buy in the first place?
Proportionate for your size, not a copy-paste from a big firm's template.
The FCA expects Consumer Duty to apply proportionately — a sole trader doesn't need the same evidence base as a large regulated firm, but the underlying standard is the same. Through FCA Guard, we help you build target market and fair value assessments, outcome monitoring, and your annual board report in a way that's genuinely manageable for a small business, not a document exercise done once and forgotten.
Our Consumer Duty Pack gives you ready-to-use templates for the implementation plan, outcome MI, target market and fair value registers, and financial promotions controls — built from real FCA expectations, not generic boilerplate.
Common questions about Consumer Duty
What does Consumer Duty actually mean for my firm?
Consumer Duty is the FCA's rule that firms must act to deliver good outcomes for retail customers. In practice it means being able to show — not just say — that your products, pricing, communications and customer support are all genuinely working in customers' interests, with evidence to back it up.
Does Consumer Duty apply to small firms and sole traders?
Yes, Consumer Duty applies regardless of firm size, but the FCA expects a proportionate approach — what a sole trader needs to evidence looks different from what a large firm needs, both in scale and complexity. The principle is the same; the paperwork doesn't need to be.
What is the Consumer Duty board report?
It's an annual report, usually reviewed and approved by the firm's governing body, that assesses whether the firm is delivering good customer outcomes across the four Consumer Duty outcomes, flags any issues found, and sets out an action plan to address them.
What are the four Consumer Duty outcomes?
Products and services (fit for purpose and meeting a genuine customer need), price and value (fair value for what's provided), consumer understanding (communications customers can actually understand), and consumer support (support that's as easy to get as it was to buy in the first place).
How does KMS help with Consumer Duty?
Through FCA Guard, our ongoing compliance service, we help you build Consumer Duty into how the business actually runs — target market and fair value assessments, outcome monitoring, and the board report — rather than treating it as a one-off document to file away.
Not sure where your Consumer Duty evidence stands?
A quick, no-obligation conversation will usually clear it up.