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Mortgage comment on FCA announcement to streamline rules

Journalist: Samantha Partingto, Freelance

ended 30. July 2024

The FCA has announced it's launching a review of its rules to reduce the burden on businesses by identifying those rules which overlap with Consumer Duty. 

It wants to address areas of complexity, duplication, confusion, or over-prescription, which create regulatory costs with limited or no consumer benefit.

I'm looking for mortgage brokers' views on which rules should be scrapped and why - in line with the FCA's outline of overlapping with Consumer Duty.

4 responses from the Newspage community

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Michelle Lawson
Director at Lawson Financial
In my opinion, Consumer Duty needs streamlining and clarity full stop. The FCA have bought out a huge piece of 'guidance' to be implemented however all firms, regardless of size, have had to, dissect, adopt and break down their practice-a good thing on the face of it but a massive task. From the one man band to the huge big banks. Some firms don't have the luxury of Consumer Duty/Compliance departments who focus on this wholly in their working day and have done so from the start so the smaller firms are struggling also trying to write the business and deal with this too. Whilst the intentions are good I think it has been the biggest disproportionate faux pas by the FCA.
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Editor
Ben Perks
Managing Director at Orchard Financial Advisers
There is definitely a lot of duplication. Consumer Duty is all encompassing, and this should be refined to eliminate any grey areas.
Then as long as firms are operating within the boundaries set by consumer duty, there is very little else to check other than financial resilience and any fraudulent activity. This will help to streamline the reporting as this is time consuming and costly for firms.
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Scott Taylor-Barr
Principal Adviser at Barnsdale Financial Management
This is great news from the FCA, which is not something you will often hear me say. Too many times the FCA introduce new rules with no thought given to the rules they may replace, or in some cases conflict with, which are already in use. So, a program of reviewing the rule books considering the latest changes makes sense and will be welcomed by many in the profession. It could also give practitioners the chance to give feedback on the rules that the FCA needs to reconsider, as some things that sounded great in theory have not been translated into practice as well as was first envisaged. I just hope that the FCA takes this opportunity to listen to those that work with the rule’s day-in-day-out, via a proper, thorough, and open consultation process.
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Dr Konrad Rotthege
Co-founder at Conveyo
Aligning the regulatory frameworks for both mortgage broking and conveyancing is essential to create a more efficient and consumer-focused property transaction process. While both industries play crucial roles in the property transaction process, they face distinct regulatory challenges.

Mortgage broking is subject to a relatively robust regulatory framework, with clear consumer protection measures in place. However, there is potential for simplification in areas such as product disclosure and suitability requirements. The FCA's focus on reducing regulatory burden could lead to a more efficient and competitive mortgage broking market.

The conveyancing sector is particularly burdened by regulatory uncertainty. The lack of clear guidelines, coupled with the complexities of property law, has created a challenging operating environment. This uncertainty leads to increased costs, delays, and a higher risk of errors.