CONC and Consumer Duty: How the Regimes Interact

CONC and Consumer Duty: How the Two Regimes Interact

Consumer-credit firms have lived with the Consumer Credit sourcebook (CONC) for years. Since it came fully into force, they have also had to meet the Consumer Duty. The two are not alternatives, and they are not duplicates. This article sets out how they interact — where they overlap, where the Duty raises the bar above CONC’s detailed rules, and what that means for a compliance function that has to satisfy both at once.

Two different kinds of regulation

The starting point is that CONC and the Consumer Duty are different in nature. CONC is a detailed, rules-and-guidance sourcebook: it tells firms specific things they must do, from financial-promotion standards to creditworthiness assessment to arrears handling. The Consumer Duty is an outcomes-based framework: it requires firms to act to deliver good outcomes for retail customers, framed around four outcomes — products and services, price and value, consumer understanding, and consumer support — underpinned by a cross-cutting obligation to act in good faith, avoid foreseeable harm, and enable customers to pursue their financial objectives.

A firm can comply with the letter of a CONC rule and still fall short of the Duty if the outcome for the customer is poor. That is the essential shift: CONC asks ‘did you follow the rule?’; the Duty asks ‘did the customer get a good outcome?’ A compliance function now has to answer both.

Where they overlap and reinforce

In many areas the two point the same way, and the Duty amplifies obligations CONC already contained. Affordability is the clearest example. CONC 5.2A already requires a creditworthiness assessment that considers the customer’s ability to repay sustainably; the Consumer Duty’s avoid-foreseeable-harm obligation reinforces it, because lending that a customer cannot sustainably afford is a foreseeable harm. A firm doing affordability well under CONC is already most of the way to meeting the Duty on that point — but the Duty asks it to look beyond the assessment to the actual outcome.

The same is true of consumer understanding. CONC has long contained detailed rules on financial promotions and adequate pre-contract explanations; the Duty’s consumer-understanding outcome pushes firms to test whether customers actually understood, not merely whether the prescribed information was provided.

Where the Duty raises the bar above CONC

The more demanding areas are where the Duty asks for something CONC’s rules do not spell out. Price and value is the standout. CONC regulates certain charges and requires specific disclosures, but it does not, in general, require a firm to satisfy itself that a product offers fair value. The Duty does. A consumer-credit product that complies with every applicable CONC rule can still fail the price-and-value outcome if the total cost is not reasonable relative to the benefit the customer receives. For high-cost credit in particular, this is a genuine step up.

The monitoring expectation is also higher. The Duty requires firms to monitor and evidence the outcomes their customers actually receive, and to act where those outcomes are poor. This is a data and governance obligation that goes beyond CONC’s transaction-level record-keeping — the firm has to be able to show, at portfolio level, that its customers are getting good outcomes.

The burden of proof has moved

A theme runs through the interaction: under the Duty, the burden of proof sits with the firm. It is not enough to have followed CONC and to assert that outcomes are fine; the firm must be able to demonstrate good outcomes with evidence. For a compliance function this changes the job. Compliance monitoring can no longer be purely rule-based — checking that CONC procedures were followed — it has to become outcomes-based as well, evidencing that those procedures actually produced fair results for customers.

A practical map of where the two regimes meet

It helps to see the interaction area by area. Across the main touchpoints of a consumer-credit relationship, CONC supplies the detailed rule and the Consumer Duty supplies the outcome test:

• Affordability. CONC 5.2A requires a reasonable creditworthiness assessment; the Duty asks whether the lending actually avoided foreseeable harm to the customer.
• Promotions and pre-contract information. CONC prescribes what must be disclosed and how; the Duty asks whether the customer genuinely understood.
• Pricing and charges. CONC regulates specific charges; the Duty asks whether the product offers fair value overall.
• Arrears and collections. CONC 7 requires forbearance and fair treatment; the Duty’s consumer-support outcome asks whether support was genuinely accessible when the customer needed it.

Reading the two together like this is the practical skill a consumer-credit compliance function now needs. Neither regime is sufficient alone: CONC without the Duty risks technically-compliant poor outcomes; the Duty without CONC lacks the detailed standards that make it operable.

Governance: who owns the two regimes together

A recurring question in consumer-credit firms is where accountability for holding CONC and the Duty together actually sits. The Consumer Duty is typically owned at board level, often with a designated non-executive Consumer Duty champion, while day-to-day compliance with CONC runs through the compliance function under the Head of Compliance. The two must connect: the board needs assurance not just that CONC rules are followed but that customer outcomes are good, and the compliance function has to supply the evidence that lets the board give that assurance.

This is why the interaction is a leadership question, not merely a technical one. Someone has to own the whole picture — translating detailed CONC compliance into board-level outcomes assurance, and translating the board’s outcomes expectations back into operational compliance monitoring. In most firms that translation is the Head of Compliance’s job, working with the board and the Duty champion. It calls for a compliance leader who is fluent in both the rulebook and the outcomes framework, and comfortable operating at board level.

The direction of travel

Both regimes continue to develop. The FCA has signalled ongoing review of the CONC creditworthiness rules, and the Consumer Duty’s expectations are being sharpened through supervisory work and published findings. For a compliance function this means the interaction is not a settled state to be documented once, but a live area to be monitored and revisited. A firm that built its CONC-plus-Duty framework at the Duty’s introduction and has not revisited it since is likely already behind. Keeping the two aligned as both evolve is part of the ongoing job of consumer-credit compliance leadership.

What outcomes-based monitoring looks like in practice

The hardest part of holding both regimes is building monitoring that evidences outcomes rather than only process. In practice this means management information that shows, at portfolio level, how customers are actually faring — arrears trajectories, complaint patterns, the experience of vulnerable customers, and whether particular products or segments produce worse outcomes than others. A compliance function that can only report ‘we followed the CONC process’ is no longer enough; the board and the regulator want to see that the process produced fair results, and to see the firm act where it did not.

What this means for the compliance function

Practically, a consumer-credit compliance function now has to operate on two levels at once: the detailed, rule-by-rule compliance CONC demands, and the outcomes-based assurance the Duty requires. That calls for compliance leadership that understands both regimes and can build monitoring that satisfies both — a rules-based control framework layered with outcomes testing and management information that evidences customer results. It is a more demanding brief than either regime alone, and it is one of the reasons demand for experienced consumer-credit compliance leaders has risen.

FD Capital places the compliance leaders who can hold both regimes together — heads of compliance and MLROs who can run a CONC-compliant control framework and evidence Consumer Duty outcomes at the same time.

Call 020 3287 9501 or email recruitment@fdcapital.co.uk to discuss a compliance leadership appointment at a consumer-credit or regulated lending firm.

FD Capital — Regulated-Firm Compliance Recruitment

Fellow of the ICAEW | Placing compliance leaders who can hold CONC and the Consumer Duty together, into regulated firms since 2018. We recruit permanent, interim and fractional finance leaders across the UK. 4,600+ network. 160+ placements. Shortlists in 3–7 working days.

This guide is general information for finance leaders and does not constitute legal, regulatory or professional advice. Businesses should take their own advice on their specific circumstances. Regulatory positions described are current as at mid-2026 and are developing; readers should check the FCA’s latest publications.

Adrian Lawrence

Adrian Lawrence FCA is the founder of FD Capital and a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW). He holds a BSc from Queen Mary College, University of London, and has over 25 years of experience as a Chartered Accountant and finance leader working with private, PE-backed and owner-managed businesses across the UK. He founded FD Capital to connect growing businesses with the Finance Directors and CFOs they need to scale — and personally interviews candidates for senior finance appointments.