The campaign has been bolstered by the FSA’s announcement this week that it will be looking at the issue of KFIs and is aware that some lenders’ illustrations are too long.
But intermediaries believe the FSA should also be actively consulting with them about concerns over KFIs and say they will be backing MI’s campaign until the desired results are seen.
Mike Messer, partner at Andrew Morris & Company, said: “I support the campaign to produce standardised KFIs. It seems that in an ever-changing regulatory world we as small brokers continue to struggle to keep pace with regulatory requirements.
“We now find that clients are virtually deluged with Initial Disclosure Documents (IDDs) and KFIs together with complaint procedures, which surely is not the way to go.”
Bob Kooyman, broker at MWKS Partnership, commented: “The solution is simple - FSA allows us to produce quick quotes for pre-sale comparison purposes - then we produce a single KFI for the actual product chosen.
“At present I am unable to do this as Trigold no longer have the facility to produce illustrations without all the bumph. I am forced to use the top 30 table for initial comparison.”
And Robert Kelly at Mortgages Exposed said: “We fully support your current campaign; the majority of KFIs are oversized and not consumer friendly. In fact there are the exact opposite of the FSA’s objectives.”
Hatfield-based broker Stephen Graham said: “Perhaps the way forward would be for the FSA to relax the regulation with regard to KFIs (that’s not to say give a free licence), have them all in the same format, and have it similar to what we where producing before ‘Mortgage Day’.
“Some cynics may believe that this move is for our benefit to cut down on the paperwork but you cannot say that KFIs benefit the client and enable them to make a more informed choice.”
