How is the Financial Services Authority doing as a mortgage regulator? Diane Saunders reports
The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has regulated mortgages since October 2005. Since then we have contacted the FSA to clarify rules or to check how we should proceed. Staff do their best to help, but often can't because they cannot give us exact guidance, while warning us that if we misinterpret the rules we will be liable to censure.
We are now charged to “treat customers fairly”. Well, we thought we did, but only 22% of mortgage intermediaries met the first deadline of March 2007, when they had to demonstrate they were applying the Treating Customers Fairly principles in a substantial part of their business. The final deadline has now been extended until December 2008.
The regulatory advice “industry” has grown because it is becoming more difficult for advisers to read the many directives and dictats issued and incorporate them into our working lives. The introduction of “principles-based” regulation does not seem to make much difference.
The FSA regulates everything from complicated financial products, such as collateralised debt obligations, to simple
