MSE News: Energy suppliers to face tougher checks

MSE_Andrew

Energy suppliers will have to undergo tougher tests and checks on their finances from January under new rules unveiled today by energy regulator Ofgem. The new rules come after a slew of energy failures in recent months, with more than 20 suppliers going bust since September. 

Read the full story here: 
'Energy suppliers to face tougher checks as Ofgem makes raft of changes amid current crisis'

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Curiousgirl1

Horse, stable door & bolted springs to mind 

booshya

Once again, @Curiousgirl1 beats me to it.

booshya

The plans include:

 Financial stress testing for suppliers from January 2022. The regulator plans to assess suppliers against a range of potential scenarios, such as big wholesale energy price changes, or if a large number of customers were to leave or join in a short space of time. It will test to see if suppliers can manage this.

I think the issue here is that not even Ofgem could have anticipated the astronomical rise in wholesale prices we are currently experiencing.

Whilst suppliers cannot prevent mass leavings, they can prevent mass joinings as some of the smaller suppliers have done.

It's also unlikely that customers will leave en masse, unless the supplier increases it's prices above that of it's competitors, particularly where an early exit fee needs to be taken into account.

I think the industry average is that about 80% of customers coming to the end of a fixed term contract are anticipated to remain with that same supplier.

QrizB

wittynamegoeshere said:

All very good news for the monopolistic overpriced big suppliers, keep the pipsqueak upstarts away so they can charge more.

And very good news for consumers, saves us from having to pay £100 each again to rescue customers of failed pipsqueak upstarts.