John McFall, MP and Treasury Committee chairman has written to the FSA citing his disappointment that the regulator offered little public scrutiny in the area of financial advertising by firms. He called for the FSA to provide a transparent service and list the firms that had failed to adhere to Financial Promotions guidelines. He said: “Consumers seem to get a worse deal, with the FSA offering no scrutiny and little incentive for advertisers to keep to the rules. The FSA needs to take a more robust approach by highlighting poor practice.”
He added; “The FSA has a seemingly far less transparent system in regard to financial advertisements, with no publication of complaints and little public record of which companies have broken the rules.”
He argued that financial promotions should fall under the scope of the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), a factor that the Financial Services Consumer Panel had previously labelled a ‘quirk of the set up’ that did not fall under ASA rulings.
However, responding to the accusations, a spokesperson at the FSA, argued that the regulator was working hard to tackle non-compliant financial advertising. He said: “What matters most is that we deliver swift consumer protection that deals with problems quickly, often before consumers have even become aware of a potential problem. We achieve this by regularly communicating to the industry any concerns we see in financial promotions including examples of good and poor practices and taking action against firms when needed.”
