It should be obvious not to steal or murder and yet we need to make these things illegal in order to punish people for doing them.
It should be obvious to treat customers fairly, to not screw them on price, to perform service to the best possible level and treat clients with integrity, honesty, transparency and openness.
The fact that we even need a consumer duty to make this a regulatory requirement to do the right thing proves that more people than we'd perhaps care to admit are doing the wrong thing.
Few advisers would say that additional consumer protections are a bad thing, and most advice companies have already been exemplary in their commitment to high-class service to all their clients.
Where does the duty veer from the realm of the trackable, traceable and quantifiable to the world of the subjective?
But making sure everyone is sticking to the rules - and that the rules themselves are reasonable and actionable - is something that parliamentarians are now trying to wrap their heads around. How will the FCA police this? How will it be able to quantify that objectives have been met?
And is this not just risking tying UK financial services in more red tape to keep up with ever-changing notions such as 'fair value'?
'Fair value' is where it becomes really sticky to prove there has been a failure to adhere to consumer duty.
The FCA, for the purposes of this outcome, has said 'fair value' is defined as:
(1) Value is the relationship between the amount paid by a retail customer for the product and the benefits they can reasonably expect to get from the product; and
(2) A product provides fair value where the amount paid for the product is reasonable relative to the benefits of the product.
It sounds reasonable enough, putting an onus on providers to make sure that products and prices are regularly and routinely updated to make sure they are fit for the consumers' purpose and still delivering fair value, such as insurance products at renewal.
But how can this be quantified in terms of advice as a service? Where does the duty veer from the realm of the trackable, traceable and quantifiable to the world of the subjective?
