I couldn’t help wondering who this panel is, who actually are the individuals who the Government are using to come up with these suggestions.
So having looked at the Financial Services Consumer Panel own website, the backgrounds of the thirteen panel members include :
A career civil servant
A solicitor
Another civil servant
A small business consultant
Team director at the treasury
An independent consumer finance consultant who helped set up the Which money helpline
A professor and expert on pension policy
A macro economist
A micro economist
An inaugural Clore Social Fellow
A freelance journalist specialising in financial matters in Scotland
An ex-Which, Council leader
A professional researcher and political analyst
Now I’m not decrying the need for a good spread of knowledge and experience in the panel which has some very knowledgeable people on it, however when it’s suggested that MAS, already cited as not giving value for money should have it’s terms of reference expanded to actually choosing a mortgage via their panel of “approved” advisers this would seem to be overstepping their practical limits by some margin.
Would the SRA recommend a “good” solicitor, or the GMC a good doctor or even the IPSA a decent MP? I think not, so why does the FCA in the guise of MAS seem so hell-bent on going further and further down this road to nowhere?
The notion of ‘signposting consumers to regulated advisers on its directory’ doesn’t sound like it’s talking about the FCA registry. And while on the face of it this might sound like a fair comment since I doubt if anyone would disagree that along with the vast majority of good, experienced advisers on the FCA registry there are certainly some advisers who while staying just this side of regulation, you definitively wouldn’t recommend to a friend or family.
But the problem is, who compiles this directory? What’s the criteria for getting on it? – and equally importantly, if one of the advisers on the official MAS directory gives bad advice, regardless of the small print in any agreement, how could MAS and ultimately the government avoid any liability for this advice as the gatekeepers of the directory?
Hopefully, any possible advantages of the Consumer Panel’s suggestion will be far outweighed by the disadvantages, but meanwhile back to the make up of the Financial Services Consumer Panel, in today’s very fluid market, wouldn’t it help if they had a couple of current, experienced mortgage brokers and financial advisers on it?
This would help us weigh up the practicalities of any well-intentioned suggestions with some experience of what is actually practical and would work at this time for ordinary people.
For more, see the original news report on Mortgage Solutions HERE
Gary Watts is the director of Which Network
