MSE News: Consumers promised swift financial justice under new regulator

Former_MSE_Helen

"Consumers have been told the the new financial regulator will act quicker than its predecessor to stop mis-selling ..."

Read the full story:

Consumers promised swift financial justice under new regulator

~Brock~

What an appropriate day to start.

dalesrider

The FCA will also continue to do much of the FSA's current work, such as preventing unauthorised firms ripping off consumers and taking enforcement action.

So does that mean that they will take action against the PPI claim firms. That are ripping of people.....
Opp's sorry the FSA are doing nothing. So it can't be a rip off :rotfl:

Consumerist

Well, they couldn't do much worse than the FSA. But as a reward for FSA ineptitude, the chief executive of the new FCA will be an executive from the old FSA. I think I can see the way in which that's expected to work out.

More promises, promises, promises but plenty of excuses for the businesses they are supposed to be regulating. Only time will tell.

irs101

Consumerist wrote: »

But as a reward for FSA ineptitude, the chief executive of the new FCA will be an executive from the old FSA.

While there will be lots of old FSA people in the FCA, that particular criticism seems unfair. Wheatley was appointed specifically to run the FCA - in the meantime he has indeed been an FSA exec, but would you really want a new guy turning up for the 1st time on 1 April?

mo786uk

The simple fact is most regulators dont actually have the wide ranging powers most peopel thin kthey do - often they can only work reactivley and punish companies for breaing the law.

I would imagine the FSAs powers to prevent businesses doing new things was very limited unless they were doing something outright illegal.

The current Government love business and dislike regulation - so it will be interesting to see hwo it goes.

If you wnat PROACTIVE regulators watching the amrket it takes a lot of will power.

With a reactive method you hope 90% do things fine and chase the 10% bad guys.

With a proactive system you could spend all your time checking 80-100% of business but not finding anything wrong 90% of the time. Which is why it is ane expensive (but more thorough) way of doing things.

What the FCA are very draconinan powers to come down on businesses hard when they are doing somehting dodgy - will they get it? I doubt it.


Most punishments will require Court input - which in some financial contexts could take years.

ManAtHome

Well, I suppose we'll eventually get round to the SFA (consisting of the same old time-serving failures of course).

I used to refer to the FSA as Feeble Spin Afterwards, probably best if I have a bit of a think rather than posting my initial expansion of FCA...

dcannon

I had a long dispute with the FSA and came to the firm conclusion they acted to protect financial institutions not consumers.

Martin Wheatley (chief executive of the new FCA) has given no indication that illegal fraud and false accounting will be pursued.

Thieves are not simply allowed to give back stolen goods if they get caught they are PUNISHED!!!

Consumerist

mo786uk wrote: »

If you [want] PROACTIVE regulators watching the [market] it takes a lot of will power.

It seems to me that a good start would be for the FCA to monitor financial complaints made to watchdogs to see what is actually affecting consumers. A proactive stance by the FCA could then reduce the load on the over-burdened Ombudsman Service: Finance (or whatever the old FOS is called these days).

GTG

Another name change for a so called regulator, an ineffective waste of tax payers money. The foxes are in charge of the hen house folks.
It was the SIB the securities and investment board then the PFA personal finance authority then the FSA now the FCA !! They think a name change is going to fool us again! From personal experience its predecessor the SIB was a complete waste of time.

Another poster above hit the nail on the head, they are here to protect the financial services industry not us.

mo786uk

Consumerist wrote: »

It seems to me that a good start would be for the FCA to monitor financial complaints made to watchdogs to see what is actually affecting consumers. A proactive stance by the FCA could then reduce the load on the over-burdened Ombudsman Service: Finance (or whatever the old FOS is called these days).

That is a reactive way of operating - but the question is what do you do with the complaints once you have them.

I do have soem sympathy for them because some of the issues they will be dealing with are extremley complex.