Danny Lovey says the FSA’s plans for the mortgage market must not be allowed to go ahead and that bank bench MPs need to step up and stop it from happening by making sure Mark Hoban, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, “gets his rear kicked”.
Basildon-based mortgage personality Lovey wrote to local MPs John Baron and Stephen Metcalfe yesterday following the publication of the Council of Mortgage Lenders’ research that showed if the FSA’s proposals had been in effect from 2005, around 3.8 million “good” loans would potentially not have been granted.
In his letter Lovey said: “Mark Hoban needs his rear kicked by back bench MPs until he sees the damage the FSA is doing in its death throes. Come to that don't stop there. George Osborne needs to know, David Cameron needs to know and so do Grant Shapps and Eric Pickles.
“The bottom line to all this is that if the government allows the FSA to continue its destruction of the mortgage market (and the financial services market generally) then it will be the government that will be damaged by it.”
The industry veteran added: “Having shown the FSA a yellow card, the Tories should be showing the red card and force the FSA to leave the field of play.
“The FSA is an organisation the government is shutting down because they have been pretty useless and yet you are allowing them to continue their work!” he said to Baron and Metcalfe.
Lovey, who “officially” retired as a mortgage broker earlier this year, added that both MPs were good friends and said he had been involved in ongoing conversations with them about the threat the Mortgage Market Review regulation poses to the UK’s mortgage market.
“I know they’re both very concerned about this. But they really need to start kicking arses before the damage is done by the FSA,” Lovey told Mortgage Introducer.
In the past few days trade bodies the CML, the Intermediary Mortgage Lenders Association, the Building Societies’ Association and the Association of Mortgage Intermediaries have all made formal submissions to the FSA requesting further debate on the MMR proposals.
“These forces are speaking with a pretty uniform voice,” said Lovey. “And I think the industry understands the damage the FSA will do. The people who are saying it aren’t just mortgage brokers. The CML, AMI, BSA and IMLA are looking after all aspects of the industry.
“It’s not just about brokers and protecting ourselves. We’re trying to protect the whole market and help it survive to serve the consumer. The way the FSA is going, there won’t be an industry left to serve the consumer.”
