The Financial Conduct Authority proposed regime for consumer credit focuses on the new requirements for consumer credit firms which has implications for mortgage brokers due to the requirement imposed on them to hold a CCL.
Robert Sinclair, chief executive of AMI, said: “AMI welcomes the FCA’s commitment to allow for an appointed representative regime to exist for consumer credit activities.
“The AR proposition is well established across the financial services industry. Those firms that currently act as ARs for their mortgage business should also be able to do so for related consumer credit activities.
“We are concerned that AR firms that currently hold a consumer credit licence will be required to enter the interim permission regime even though they may be unlikely to become fully authorised as they are instead able to become ARs for their consumer credit activities.”
Sinclair said that while the FCA has provided greater clarity on its proposals for the regulation of consumer credit AMI’s long held view is that the dual regulation of mortgage brokers, resulting from FCA’s regulation and the Office of Fair Trading’s CCL regime, has created an unnecessary regulatory burden on firms.
He said: “The regulatory transfer process is an ideal time for the FCA to tidy up this unnecessary duplication of rules by removing the consumer credit requirements from firms that already hold a mortgage permission.”
