Keeping your team up to date with FCA Compliance

With the new year very much underway, training plans for 2025 will need to ensure that staff at all levels receive appropriate guidance on a growing range of themes. Everything from identifying complaints to fair treatment of customers to the conduct rules to how the Consumer Duty affects their work needs to be covered.

The Financial Conduct Authority is clear that maintaining compliance must include training staff to understand the regulations and how to put them into practice. This is something that every firm – whatever the size and nature of business – needs to take seriously. Some of the largest fines issued recently have involved major firms failing to train staff in essential aspects such as identifying vulnerable customers and asking appropriate questions to fully understand customers’ financial situations.

Training should never be considered an optional extra or treated as a tick-box, trivial matter. The Senior Managers and Certification Regime mandates regular training on the conduct rules, and keeping up with regulatory changes and best practice is needed to prevent regulatory breaches in almost all areas of business. The Consumer Duty requires firms to ensure that staff understand the latest expectations around fair customer outcomes and best practice.

Training needs to cover both the theory and the practical: why the rules exist and how they fit into day-to-day tasks. This is something that many firms struggle with and is why e-learning is such a useful tool. Good quality in-person training works well where experts deliver that training, but time and distance means this is not always possible. E-learning created by industry experts can deliver that training immediately to small and large firms across the country.

Another benefit of FCA compliance e-learning is how easy it is to gather data. Reports showing pass rates demonstrate where staff might be struggling to get to grips with concepts or practice, and can feed into on-the-job training plans, feedback, or even culture changes.

So does training need to be regular? The answer is a resounding yes. Onboarding training is essential, helping new staff to understand why they’ll need to follow process. Regular, at least annual, training supports staff at all levels to maintain that knowledge and to prevent bad habits or misinterpretations from happening. Even after the introduction of the Consumer Duty, the FCA will update their expectations and define best practice through their regular reviews. Staff need to become familiar with these expectations to help prevent mis-selling scandals, data breaches and regulatory fines.

While online FCA compliance training tends to cost less than in-house in-person courses, it can lead to significant savings in the long run. FCA issued fines show how seriously the regulator takes staff compliance. TSB Bank were fined over £10m in 2024 for poor treatment of customers in financial difficulties – the FCA found that the Bank’s staff struggled to support customers in financial difficulties, identify vulnerable customers, or ask the right questions to understand customers’ circumstances. Fair treatment of customers is likely to be a major focus for the regulator in 2025 as it reviews firms’ compliance with its Guidance.

FCA Compliance courses should cover the latest regulatory requirements. Our courses are updated each year, incorporating knowledge of regulatory requirements and best practice by industry experts, with fresh and engaging scenarios. Browse our 2025 course catalogue here, or contact us at robert.bell@rbcompliance.co.uk for more information about enrolling groups.