During the Summer MI drew attention to the increasing number of brokers who had signed up with lead generation firms and were receiving poor service. Many felt frustrated by the low quality and quantity of leads provided, and complained of poor value for money.
Since ‘Mortgage Day’ there have been increasing calls from the broking community to bring all lead generation firms under the FSA’s regulatory umbrella.
Following MI’s involvement a number of mortgage brokers have now been contacted and assured the FSA is looking into how these firms secure their leads. It is thought the review will be taking place as part of the FSA’s work into Financial Promotions.
One broker said: “I received a phone call this week from the FSA to say it had seen the coverage in MI on these unauthorised lead generation companies. The regulator is most concerned by the frustration felt by many brokers who have dealt with these firms. I was told the FSA is investigating the sector and treating brokers’ concerns very seriously. I was told to ‘watch this space’.”
Robin Gordon-Walker, spokesperson at the FSA, said: “It’s something we’re keeping an eye on but it’s a tricky area because we don’t have the power to commission papers on it. We did update the mortgage and general insurance website pages for small businesses on lead generation a few months back when these sort of queries came up.”
Simon Baker, operations manager for lead generation firm Leadbay.co.uk, welcomed the news: “For us the process cannot come soon enough as we have seen many lead generation companies that are not compliant and are still trading.”
