According to a survey by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which surveyed round 1,230 firms, a further 23 per cent said they would comply with most requirements by the deadline but there would be more work to do.
Approximately seven per cent said they would still have significant work to do after the deadline or had not started work on the duty.
The report continued that there were “high levels of engagement and understanding of the duty, including in many of the sectors where historically regulatory change has had lower levels of engagement”.
However, it said retail finance providers and debt advice firms scored “consistently lower than others on engagement, understanding, and implementation progress”.
The regulator said it was issuing further communication to these firms and working with industry bodies to “amplify messages”.
The FCA said: “We are pleased to see that most firms are making substantial efforts to implement the duty to the deadlines required. We know from our supervisory and engagement activity that many firms have already taken significant steps to accelerate their implementation work since this snapshot of firms’ progress was taken in March to early May.
“However, we remain concerned that a small minority of firms have not prioritised the duty sufficiently and made use of the substantial support available.”
The regulator said it would use sectorial insights from the report to help “target our future work to supervise the duty”.
The report continued that firms that were confident of meeting the implementation deadline would need to “maintain oversight of their implementation plans to ensure they remain on track to deliver on time”.
“Boards and management bodies should assure themselves that their firm has fully engaged with the details of the requirements and the shift to focus on consumer outcomes,” it added.
The report noted that firms who have made good progress but had not done all the work required would need to be “prioritising action that improves consumer outcomes and reduces risks of harm”.
“Oversight of this prioritisation is essential, and boards and management bodies need to ensure they have identified any potential gaps or weaknesses in their implementation and any action needed to remedy this,” it said.
The regulator urged firms which had not been taking Consumer Duty seriously and are a long way from meeting requirements to make “strenuous efforts in the next month to accelerate their implementation work, prioritising the work that is likely to have the greatest impact on consumer outcomes”.
The regulator said: “Firms must alert us if they believe they will be in significant breach of the duty when it comes into force and should be prepared for FCA to take robust action where we see firms’ failure to implement the duty causing actual or potential harm to consumers.
“This could include holding senior managers to account where they have failed to act to implement the duty and prevent such harm.”
