No charge? Then no need to be regulated, say Labour peers
This would be brilliant! I remember many years ago a representative from John Charcol addressed delegates at a Bradford & Bingley conference and said that under the old MCCB regime Charcol had spent £7M complying with the code and £7,000 compensating clients for bad advice. Such is the onerous cost of compliance.
Vyvyan
02 Jul 2012 | 11:04
Turner: Time to put ‘damaged’ FSA reputation behind us
Unfortunately it is not possible for the FSA to put its tarnished reputation behind it.
By changing its name, perhaps the public will miss seeing it out of the headlines but there is no doubt that this leopard is not changing its spots rather it is only using the 3 cup sleight of hand manoeuvre to split and change its name.
Unaccountability, vested interest (mostly ex bank officials at top) will do nothing to give this Quango a good reputation. Panorama and other financial journalists need to do an expose of the FSA and its proposed successor, show the change of name and revolving door organisation up for what it is, with its inherent nepotism, huge conflict of interest and save the British public from its incompetence.
RDR is an unforgivable step too far and I’m not talking about increasing knowledge, but removal of face to face advice from the ordinary person and forcing them to take products from the self-serving banks is.
Mike
03 Jul 2012 | 12:42
Residential property transactions have halved since 2006
Will it ever be realised that mortgage regulations have contributed more to this than other issues! When perfectly credit worthy people with large deposits cannot get a mortgage, transactions will fall! Other issues do have little bearings!
Salam Ansari
04 Jul 2012 | 17:50
Cameron attacks ‘spivvy and probably illegal’ LIBOR activity
If our Prime Minister alleges criminal activity within our banking system, surely it must be investigated by the law without delay? A Judge led enquiry would seem wholly appropriate.
If not, are we in danger of being lumped with other legally-expedient nations? Our Nations Senior Politician cannot use such words without following them through!
John
05 Jul 2012 | 10:06
Industry positive about Abbey’s quality based fees
The principle of paying on quality would surely appeal to any brokers hoping for higher standards. and hence one might be surprised only 53% support the proposal.
However, I suspect the other 47% have the same concerns as I do, such as:
1. Surely all cases should be of high quality? Is Abbey accepting poor quality business and just paying a little less?
2. The reality is perhaps that quality refers more to packaging and knowing if a case fits their criteria. Sadly, Abbey’s criteria is now one of the most complicated in the industry and this has deterred many brokers from using them.
As a result, many will want hand-holding through their application system to understand the very particular definitions of commitments and non regular expenses that do not align with the Oxford dictionary. Ironically, if a broker has not sumbitted much business, they will now have lost face-toface support making matters worse.
3. Lastly, I cannot see any lender daring to reduce proc fees for large introducers such as estate agency chains or networks. The former can have a high turnover of staff and many new to industry trainees so the quality can be mixed.
For networks, it is impossible to ensure high quality across all ARs with some having near 1,000 firms. However, with both, Abbey has been bolstering this with higher levels of BDM support, which are not available to all firms.
Abbey has made a number of changes over the last year or 2 with the headline of “leading the industry” though no others have followed. It has appeared to many they were keen to reduce market share and the latest annoucement to pay less on “quality” only serves to re-enforce that view in my opinion. Time will tell if Abbey has this right and it is certainly better than Lloyds approach of striking off brokers without explanation or appeal.
Arron Bardoe
05 Jul 2012 | 17:11
Thanks for all your comments this week
