So it’s finally here – the day the FCA heralded would mark “a step change in the way financial services firms treat their customers.”

Nothing feels particularly different on day one of Consumer Duty. Yet from a due diligence perspective, Consumer Duty has definitely raised the bar.

The requirement to avoid foreseeable harms means thinking about what clients will need from their platforms and investments both now and in the future. And for that, you need a robust approach to due diligence.

Consumer Duty doesn’t mean a complete rewrite of how Analyser works – the system already has good practice built in. But as firms have revisited and evolved their processes in line with the new rules, so have we.

For the first phase of our rollout, 20 platforms and 33 MPS providers have provided us with additional data points specific to Consumer Duty, so you can now use Analyser to assess these providers from a Consumer Duty perspective.

We have also created five new Consumer Duty templates, which have the pre-set features and information we believe are most relevant to Consumer Duty rules.

This includes things like links to value assessments, target client definitions and whether a platform asks at sign-up about client vulnerability.

The new templates are:

Platforms

- Consumer Duty (core)

- Consumer Duty (expanded)

- Consumer Duty (vulnerable clients)

MPS

- Consumer Duty (core)

- Consumer Duty (expanded)

We’ve also produced a guide showing how Analyser fits in with Consumer Duty requirements, including how tos on using templates for a full due diligence report or when running comparisons.

For a forensic approach to research and due diligence that’s Consumer Duty ready, Analyser has got you covered.

You can download our Analyser Consumer Duty guide by going to insights & help - you'll find the guide in the user help section.