Does the FCA Consumer Duty apply to my firm?
The Consumer Duty (PRIN 2A) is the FCA's cross-cutting standard for how authorised firms treat retail customers. Whether it applies to your firm depends on your regulatory status and your client base. Work through the five questions below to find out.
Step 1 — Are you FCA-authorised or an FCA appointed representative?
Check the FCA Financial Services Register. Search your firm name.
If YES — you are on the Register or listed as an appointed representative of a principal firm on the Register — go to Step 2.
If NO — and you are not carrying out any FCA-regulated activity — Consumer Duty (PRIN 2A) does not apply to your firm. Your own regulator's conduct rules (SRA Codes, ARB Standards, RICS Rules of Conduct, ICAEW Bye-laws, ACCA Code of Ethics) still apply. Stop here.
Step 2 — Do you have any retail customers?
A retail customer under the FCA Handbook Glossary is broadly: an individual acting for purposes outside their trade, business or profession, or a small business or partnership meeting the SME threshold. Sole traders often qualify as retail. Corporates typically do not.
If YES — any retail customers — Consumer Duty applies to those relationships. Go to Step 3 for the practical implications.
If NO — your entire client base is professional clients or eligible counterparties — Consumer Duty in the retail sense does not bite, but the FCA's wholesale conduct rules under COBS still apply. Stop here.
Step 3 — Are you a directly authorised firm or an appointed representative?
Both carry Consumer Duty obligations, but the accountability sits differently.
Directly authorised (DA) — you carry the Consumer Duty outcome accountability yourself. Your board (or governing body) signs the annual Consumer Duty report. Your compliance officer (SMF16) is on the hook. Your PI cover must respond.
Appointed representative (AR) — the principal firm carries the FCA-facing accountability. You still operate under the principal's Consumer Duty framework. Your PI cover must respond to your acts, but the principal's framework governs the outcomes assessment.
Step 4 — Solicitors, accountants and other professionals doing FCA-regulated activity incidentally
A firm not usually thought of as FCA-authorised may still be caught if it carries out regulated activity as incidental to its main business.
Solicitors arranging deals in investments, contracts of insurance, mortgages, or acting as introducer under the SRA Financial Services (Scope) Rules 2001 — regulated activity, PRIN 2A applies to those matters.
Accountants under the ICAEW / ACCA / AAT / ATT / CIPFA Designated Professional Body regime carrying out FCA-regulated investment business — DPB permission is FCA-derived, PRIN 2A applies.
Mortgage advisers, IFAs, discretionary managers, consumer credit lenders and brokers — core FCA-authorised activity, PRIN 2A applies fully.
Insurance intermediaries — core FCA-authorised activity under the insurance distribution rules, PRIN 2A applies fully.
Step 5 — What Consumer Duty requires when it applies
The four outcomes:
- Products and services — fit for target market, product-oversight-distribution (POG) records held.
- Price and value — fair value assessment across the distribution chain, commission and fees disclosed pre-contract.
- Consumer understanding — disclosures tested for comprehension, IPID and demands-and-needs statement pre-inception.
- Consumer support — vulnerable customer adjustments, complaints under DISP, claim service assessed as an outcome.
Plus the cross-cutting rules: act in good faith; avoid foreseeable harm; enable customers to pursue their financial objectives.
Plus the annual board (or equivalent) Consumer Duty report, due each 31 July (first report was July 2024).
The five-question summary
- Are you FCA-authorised or an FCA appointed representative? Yes = go to Q2. No + no regulated activity = out of scope.
- Do you have retail customers? Yes = Duty applies to those relationships. No = wholesale COBS only.
- DA or AR? DA = you own outcomes. AR = principal firm framework governs.
- Are you a solicitor, accountant, or similar doing incidental regulated activity? Yes = Duty applies to those activities under DPB or SRA Financial Services Rules.
- Do you meet the four outcomes and file the annual report? That's the compliance job in one sentence.