TSC has published the transcript of the hearing held on 8 May 2024 attended by Nikhil Rathi and Ashley Alder.  Topics include: FCA’s enforcement consultation; debanking; motor finance; the Consumer Duty; MiFID II; access to cash; bank branch closures; pensions.

In its report on access to banking services for smaller firms, TSC criticises the debanking of legitimate businesses and the processes for resolving disputes between SMEs and banks and calls on FCA to force banks to be more transparent about why decisions to debank businesses are taken.  The report also recommends that FCA gives FOS the powers to address personal guarantees for smaller firms.  TSC also calls on PRA not to go ahead with plans to scrap the SME supporting factor in the new Basel 3.1 standards.

Further to a hearing held in February 2024, TSC has now published the text of a letter from FOS which provides clarifications and answers to follow-up questions.  Topics include: 18-month old cases; fraud cases; motor finance commission cases; fractional timeshare cases, and debanking cases.  TSC highlights the latter in a press release.

Amongst other matters, the Committee’s report raises concerns over the introduction of flat bank cards and the phasing out of embossed cards by some providers.  It recommends that FCA should work with the retail banking sector and organisations such as RNIB to ensure all banks embrace inclusive design from the outset and provide flat bank cards which are accessible to disabled people with tactile indicators and a clear visual design.  The Committee also recommends that banks and providers of cash points should ensure all machines have been approved by disabled users, are installed in locations accessible to all and regularly checked so accessible features are in working order.

This BIS paper assesses the regulatory requirements applied to NBFI retail lenders in 20 jurisdictions, including those that can accept deposits or their functional equivalent.

FCA has published mortgage lending statistics for Q4 2023.

FCA has published the findings of its wholesale data market study, which examined competition in the markets for credit ratings data, benchmarks and market data vendor services.  It has ruled out a significant intervention due to potential unintended consequences – however, across all three markets, FCA has identified areas where competition does not work well and intends to take forward ideas to help support wholesale data being available on fair, reasonable and transparent terms as part of its work to ‘repeal and replace’ assimilated EU law. As the relevant regulations are reviewed under the Smarter Regulatory Framework, FCA intends to: look at whether regulations could be improved so wholesale data is provided on a transparent, fair and reasonable basis (but it does not plan to consider options for directly regulating prices of wholesale data); consider how free credit ratings data sources could be enhanced to act as a viable alternative data source for firms to meet their regulatory requirements, and look at whether the UK MiFID II requirements for regulated firms to provide market data on a reasonable commercial basis could help address issues identified relating to data generators.