Speaking at the Expo, Dominic Clark, manager of the FSA’s Mortgages Department, Small Firms Division said the regulator's primary focus for this action over the next three years would be its 'Treating Customers Fairly' agenda.
He revealed that the FSA's enhanced strategy will be put into practice in Northern Ireland first, with firms getting advance notification of how the regulator plans to review their business.
The contact the FSA would have with the firms in question would range from telephone interviews to full blown face-to-face firm visits, targeting senior management.
Clark emphasised the FSA’s intention to work in partnership with firms over TCF.
He also made it clear that any firms who were judged to be lagging behind needed to substantially up their pace of implementation.
Clark also tackled the recent concern raised regarding the increase in firm fees which would be necessary to pay for the extra resources the regulator needed to meet its firm contact commitments.
“We want to visit 25 per cent of all firms to go through their systems and controls. This will have an impact on fees," he concluded.
"There will be a fee consultation paper out on 5 February on this issue. The figures quoted of a 25 per cent increase in fee levels are way over the odds; it is more likely to be 10-15 per cent.”
