Compliance Insights Articles

Last week’s article covered some of the key provisions in CONC for consumer credit firms with a focus on helping customers who are vulnerable and those in financial difficulty, probably the most important topics. My aim is to expand upon the topic in this article through a focus on CONC 6 and 7 which cover post-contract obligations and the handling of arrears. CONC 6 – Post-contract obligations Firms are generally prohibited from signing a customer up to credit and then ignor

To celebrate the launch of our CONC Guide, an easy to understand overview of CONC, I thought it would be useful to produce an overview of the key provisions in CONC which impact most consumer credit firms. I’ll start by giving a little bit of an overview of CONC, or the Consumer Credit Sourcebook to give it it’s full title. It’s a part of the FCA Handbook which was introduced when the regulation of consumer credit was transferred from the Office of Fair Trading to the FCA in

As always, we aim to keep you right up to date with all matters to do with financial services compliance, as such we have produced a “regulation round-up” summarising the key updates from March. The FCA Directory On 8th March the FCA released the long anticipated final rules on the Financial Services Directory. If you remember from our previous articles, the FCA took steps to create an updated version of the Financial Services Register because, it became apparent, many indivi

In this article, we’ll take a look ahead at the upcoming regulatory changes over the next nine months of 2019. In the last two years, firms have dealt with significant new legislative and regulatory rules and guidance, including the Dear CEO letter regarding complaints, the new Pre-action Protocol for Debt Claims, the new rules around Remuneration and Staff Incentives, new rules on Creditworthiness Assessments, and GDPR. Depending on the type of firm, your firm may be embeddi

Following on from last week’s look at CONC, this week we’re going to examine DISP, the section of the FCA Handbook that sets out how firms should handle and resolve complaints about regulated activity. DISP is divided into three main chapters: Treating Complainants Fairly Jurisdiction of the Financial Ombudsman Service Complaint handling procedures of the Financial Ombudsman Service There are also further sections that are only applicable to some firms: the Standard Terms – w

Although many of us feel confident we know the FCA’s Consumer Credit Sourcebook (CONC) inside and out, even I, as somebody who covers it continually, sometimes find new information that I hadn’t considered before. Perhaps one of the reasons we struggle with CONC is the manner in which it’s written. Understandably the FCA write in a fairly legalistic style and continually reference to other sections of the handbook. While we understand the need for this to happen, it does slow

Most financial service providers and consumer credit firms must be authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority in order to operate and in 2019 these firms will be joined by Claims Management Companies when the regulator switches from the Claims Management Regulator to the FCA in April. Inwardly passported firms should also ensure that they are properly authorised before Brexit. The good news is that the time taken to process authorisation applications has fallen from an ave

With the introduction of GDPR and next year’s roll-out of the Senior Managers and Certification Regime impacting upon the consumer credit sector this year, 2018 has brought a number of regulatory challenges and changes to current practice. With the Christmas break just around the corner, this month provides a good juncture to get back to basics, and ensure current and new staff training is up to date. This week, we’ll be recapping the specialist sourcebook for consumer credit

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) have published the final rules and guidance relating to staff incentives, remuneration and performance management in consumer credit, and have confirmed the implementation date of 1 October 2018. The publication confirms that the new rules take the form of a new section in CONC, along with non-handbook guidance designed to aid firms’ journey to compliance before the implementation date. The FCA began their thematic review of firms’ arrang

With Q4 well under way, it’s a good idea to have any upcoming FCA policy statements at the forefront of your planning for 2018. Consumer credit firms should have the FCA’s ‘Assessing Creditworthiness in Consumer Credit’ proposed changes in mind. The consultation closed in October, and the policy statement is due for release in Q2 2018. So, what are the FCA proposing? The consultation suggests that research conducted by the FCA discovered that while most firms adequately cons

The Financial Conduct Authority has opened a consultation on how consumer credit firms should manage risks related to how they pay or incentivise their staff. The published package of proposed handbook rules and non-handbook guidance aims to help consumer credit firms identify potential risks and effectively manage any potential harm to consumers. The consultation follows a thematic review of 98 consumer credit firms. The FCA found that some of the firms in the sample did no