Hitting out at the recent spate of withdrawals, some merely hours before the product in question was shelved by the lender, Jannels said that despite difficult market conditions, lenders must always remember their duty to the customer.
He said: “All lenders are bound by TCF and are expected to deliver the Financial Services Authority’s TCF outcomes – especially number three that says customers must be provided with clear information and be kept informed before during and after the point of sale."
He gave one example involving a lender emailing PMPA member at 7am one morning to be told that a product range for which they were actively packaging DIP’d cases had been pulled at midnight the night before.
Jannels also appealed to lenders to end the growing trend of trimming packager payments yet maintaining those dished out to brokers.
He again cited an example of a lender which had recently cut administration fees paid to packagers by 90 basis points, however it made no change to the proc fees it was paying to its brokers.
"We all appreciate that times are tough, but do some lenders have a hidden agenda to drive a proportion of the packaging sector out of business? If so, this is very short sighted.
“In order to achieve TCF, surely fair treatment should apply across the whole market, not just in the lender/ borrower relationship?
"PMPA is asking lenders to think about returning to the practice of giving fair warning on product withdrawals and to be more even-handed when it comes to reducing fees.”
