The announcement reduces the level of fees payable by mortgage advisers by £11.7million compared to the initial FSA proposal.
Commenting, Chris Cummings, director general of AIFA and AMI, said: "Following AMI's highly publicised ‘fees campaign' I am delighted that FSA has revised the fees paid by mortgage advisers.
"Having reviewed the cost allocation across all fee blocks, those firms in the A12, A13, A18 and A19 blocks (that covers IFAs, mortgage advisers and those with exposure to protection products) will be saving £11.7 million compared to the proposed fees. This is an appropriate and welcome measure in difficult economic times. AMI strongly believes that regulatory resources, and therefore costs, should be focused on those firms that require increased supervision and not those in the IFA and mortgage advice professions.
"It is testament to the whole industry that uniting with one single voice on such a key issue resulted in FSA receiving 533 responses to the consultation. This weight of support has resulted in significant savings for firms compared to the proposed fees.” Although individual firms' fees will vary widely according to a firm's size, activities and individual circumstances, the FSA has announced that some groups of firms will be subject to lower overall fees than those initially proposed in February. For example, the total amount of fees assigned to mortgage advisers had been proposed to rise by 21.2% compared to last year but the increase will now be 2.7%. Conversely, some firms will see higher rates than those originally proposed. These firms include deposit takers, which will see the total fees assigned to them increase by 109.4% from last year compared to the 94.9% rise proposed, and firms dealing as principal where the increase across these firms will now be 80.1% rather than the 69.1% increase set out in February's consultation paper.
Minimum FSA fees (the basic fee which all firms are required to pay) will be frozen at 2008/09 levels as proposed in February's consultation paper. The FSA said that, once the financial penalty rebate is applied, approximately 10,000 small firms will actually experience a fee reduction compared to the previous year.
