Consumer Protection & Conduct Risk
Poor customer outcomes are rarely one bad sale. They are usually a product, a target and an incentive working exactly as intended — which is why conduct risk is tested across the whole lifecycle, not at the counter alone.
Format
Classroom · Virtual
Upcoming sessions
Pick a session to applyADMISSIONS OPENCity cohorts run once six delegates are nominated. Tell us your preferred month and we’ll confirm dates at least four weeks ahead — please hold travel bookings until then — or offer the nearest confirmed session, live virtual, or in-house. No payment until confirmation.
The programme
Consumer Protection & Conduct Risk is a two-day programme for compliance, conduct risk, product, retail banking, complaints and internal audit teams who need to judge whether their institution treats customers fairly across the product lifecycle. It covers conduct risk management from product governance to sales, disclosure, incentives, complaints and redress. The international benchmark is the G20/OECD High-Level Principles on Financial Consumer Protection, updated in 2022 to take in digitalisation, sustainable finance and financial well-being; they call for product oversight and governance, fair treatment of customers, and conflicts of interest arising from remuneration and incentive structures to be avoided or managed. Participants interpret conduct risk at each stage, test sales and complaints practice for fair outcomes, and challenge the incentives behind poor behaviour, comparing practice through case studies and peer benchmarks. It complements ethics and compliance training with a consumer protection course for banks centred on customer outcomes. Delivered in English and French in Dubai, London and across the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Europe — and live online.
What you will do
Who attends
- Compliance officers and conduct risk managers in banks and other financial institutions
- Product managers, product approval committee members and marketing teams
- Retail banking, branch network and digital channel heads
- Complaints, customer experience and customer advocacy teams
- Internal auditors and second-line risk teams reviewing conduct, and supervisors of market conduct
- Participants should know their institution’s retail products and customer journeys; no prior conduct risk training is required
Programme agenda
Following a product from approval to complaint — day one governance, disclosure and sales, day two incentives, complaints and what the board sees
I.What conduct risk is, and where it sits
- Conduct risk, compliance risk and ethics: overlapping, but not the same question
- The G20/OECD High-Level Principles on Financial Consumer Protection as the international benchmark, and what their 2022 update added
- Ownership across the three lines: who answers for customer outcomes
II.Product governance: is the product right for its customers?
- Product oversight and governance from approval to withdrawal, and the questions an approval committee should ask
- Target market, pricing and fair value: when a product works for the bank but not for the customer
- Periodic product review, compared through case studies
III.Disclosure and transparency
- What customers need to know before they commit, and when disclosure is not enough
- Fees, charges and key terms: clarity in print, on screen and in conversation
- Behavioural insights: why customers misread even accurate information
IV.Sales practice and suitability
- Assessing customers’ needs and situation before recommending a product or service
- Bundling, cross-selling and pressure selling: the red flags in sales data
- Digital journeys: defaults, nudges and the conduct questions they raise
V.Incentives and culture
- How targets, remuneration and performance measures shape behaviour at the point of sale
- Conflicts of interest from remuneration and incentive structures: avoid, manage or decline to sell
- Reading culture through evidence: speak-up data, staff turnover and management behaviour
VI.Customers in vulnerable circumstances
- Recognising vulnerability: health, life events, low financial capability and digital exclusion
- Collections, arrears and forbearance as conduct questions
- Fraud and scams: protecting customers’ assets and what it asks of the bank
VII.Complaints handling and redress
- Accessible, timely and fair complaints handling, and when redress should go beyond the complainant
- Root-cause analysis: turning complaints into evidence about products, sales and incentives
- Conduct management information and what the board should see
VIII.Integrated case study
- A retail bank whose best-selling product attracts rising complaints
- Tracing the issue from product approval through sales incentives to complaints data
- Weighing remediation options and arguing the conduct position before a mock board risk committee
Frequently asked
What is conduct risk in banking?
Conduct risk is the risk that the way an institution shapes, sells and services its products leads to poor outcomes for customers or harms the integrity of the market. It is broader than breaking a rule: a product can be compliant on paper and still be unsuitable for the customers it is sold to. Managing it means looking at products, sales, incentives and complaints together.
What changed in the G20/OECD consumer protection principles?
The G20/OECD High-Level Principles on Financial Consumer Protection were reviewed ten years after the original Principles, and the updated Principles were published by the OECD in December 2022. The OECD says the revisions incorporate digitalisation, sustainable finance, financial well-being and lessons from the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. They include principles on quality financial products, responsible business conduct and culture, and complaints handling and redress.
How does it differ from Ethics in Banking and Professional Compliance & Risk Management?
Ethics in Banking centres on values and individual judgement; Professional Compliance & Risk Management covers the compliance function as a whole. This programme concentrates on customer outcomes: how products, sales, incentives and complaints combine to treat customers fairly or not, and how to evidence the difference.
What level is the programme?
It is for practitioners who know their institution’s retail products and customer journeys. No prior conduct risk training is required, and the case studies work for both first-line product and sales teams and second- and third-line reviewers.
Can it run live virtual or in-house?
Yes. Public cohorts run in the classroom and live virtual. For one institution, the programme can run in-house as a custom programme, scoped on request, in English or French.
Is there a group rate, and do delegates receive a certificate?
Institutions sending several delegates, in one cohort or across the year, receive group terms; fees are provided on enquiry. Each participant receives a BIZENIUS Banking Academy certificate of completion. The programme is practice-led rather than exam-led and is not preparation for a third-party qualification.
Who teaches this
Practitioners, not presenters.
Led by practitioners who hold, or have held, the seats this programme prepares you for: group treasurers and heads of asset–liability management, chief risk officers, heads of credit and capital management, and former central-bank supervisors who examined the very frameworks they now teach. Between cohorts the same people advise banks on those frameworks, so what you learn is what is being defended in front of boards and regulators today.
What the bench brings
- Risk-based AML/CFT programmes and systems
- KYC, client acceptance and sanctions screening
- Trade-based money laundering and fraud typologies
- MLRO responsibilities and senior accountability
- Commercial and corporate banking process design
- SME banking: organisation, products and credit
Where they have practised
Current and former practitioners — people who hold the seat today alongside those who have held it.
Sectors: Banking & financial services · Technology & fintech · Insurance · Professional services
Regions: Africa · the Middle East · Europe · Asia · the Americas
How they teach
- Live case studies from real institutions
- Worked exercises on realistic bank data
- Regulator-style challenge sessions
- Group problem-solving on realistic institutional cases
- Knowledge checks and a personal action plan
Cohorts are kept small so every exercise is worked on the participants’ own situations — in person or live virtual.
The faculty profile for your cohort is sent with the full agenda and the next dates when you enquire.Request brochure →
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In their words
Knowledge transfer, emphasised throughout
“We worked with BIZENIUS for our Fresh Graduates Programme — they are simply amazing. Knowledge transfer and practical learning were emphasised throughout.”
Kuwait Investment Authority
From the Mandate Record
Mandate № 01 · Africa
The training programme that became national regulation
What the team mastered, the regulator wrote into the rulebook.
Open the dossier →
The Capability Arc™
Fix it · Advisory
Conduct & Consumer Protection Advisory
When the institution wants the review done with it — product governance, sales incentives and complaints evidence weighed against international best practice.
Automate it · Smart IT
Risk Data, Controls & MI (BCBS 239)
Risk data and controls built to BCBS 239.
Learning is one point on the Capability Arc. Many institutions pair this programme with the advisory engagement — and automate what the framework demands.
Teams from these institutions train with BIZENIUS
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Take the brochure with you.
One request — the full agenda, the faculty and the next cohort dates, sent personally by the admissions team.