FSA scraps TCF workshops
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The Financial Services Authority has cancelled its programme of regional workshops on treating customers fairly to concentrate its resources on the move to the new regulatory restructure and the RDR.
The FSA has been carrying out its regional small firms TCF assessment programme since March 2008. It has included roadshows, face-to-face-visits and phone interviews.
Mortgage Strategy’s sister publication Money Marketing, has revealed that the regulator scheduled six regional events to follow up on earlier assessments, but decided to cancel them last week and notified advisers earlier this week. A total of 88 firms had been invited to attend and 18 firms had confirmed their attendance.
In December, Hector Sants, chief executive of the FSA said the regulator would spend less time on the routine supervision of smaller firms in order to concentrate on the transition to the new regulatory structure.
An FSA spokeswoman says: “We have cancelled all of the workshops due to a reprioritisation of resources so we can meet the timetable for our regulatory reform agenda.”
Tim Purdon, managing director of Paladin Financial Services, was due to attend one of the workshops.
He says: “I am disappointed because this was an opportunity for us to get practical guidance from the FSA on what is a day-to-day issue.
“What grounds does the FSA have for criticising IFAs for not meeting the required standards when they do not even come and talk to those IFAs about those standards?”
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