One of the Financial Conduct Authority’s statutory objectives is to provide an “appropriate degree of consumer protection”. A significant part of the FCA strategy has recently been its consumer duty.

The FCA has come under pressure from both the current government and its predecessor to do more to help the financial sector to grow, leading last year to the introduction of a secondary ‘growth and competitiveness’ objective.

In furtherance of that goal, the new administration has asked the FCA to revise its Handbook to remove rules that are overlapped by provisions of the Consumer Duty. Transparency Task Force (TTF) is concerned about this, because breaches of the rules, unlike Consumer Duty guidelines, can give rise to civil claims by consumers. What might appear to be harmless elimination of duplicated obligations could in fact remove valuable rights from citizens.

The FCA is now calling for input on these proposals, and TTF will be responding.

The purpose of our event on 17th September is to bring together members who are expressing real concerns about the apparent direction of travel the FCA is taking. We are especially worried that the FCA’s intention to simplify regulations and eliminate certain protections might, whether by accident or design, undermine crucial existing consumer safeguards.

Of course, the call for input is just a call for input; there may be a significant difference between the narrative proposed by the FCA and what it actually does. However, past experience suggests that it might be using this consultation to gather feedback from the industry that will welcome these potential changes to justify making them – all at the expense of consumers’ rights.

The kind of questions we will be considering are:

• Are the proposed changes being consulted on largely just presentational, i.e. that there may be a carefully pre-planned attempt to appear to be an open, legitimate and democratic exercise but in reality it is anything but – could this be little more than just orchestrated deception? 
  
  
• Are the serious flaws in Section 1 of FSMA, (those that set out the statutory objectives of the regulator) being ‘gamed’ to the detriment of the consumer?
  
  
• What more, if anything, can we do to expose the underlying cause of continuing consumer injustices through asking our elected representatives to take meaningful action. 

Please attend and share your views and let’s do all that we can to continue to protect consumers from harm – which is ironically what the FCA should be doing!

If all goes to plan, we may have some of the following participating at the event:

• Parliamentarians who may have a particular interest in the FCA’s consumer protection objective, especially: 
  • Members of the UK’s Treasury Committee; its purpose is as follows: “The Treasury Committee is appointed by the House of Commons to examine the expenditure, administration and policy of HM Treasury, HM Revenue & Customs, and associated public bodies, including the Bank of England and the Financial Conduct Authority.”
  • Members of The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Investment Fraud and Fairer Financial Services (which is soon to publish an important Report on the Financial Conduct Authority, the UK’s equivalent underway); its purpose is: “To advocate for the victims of financial misconduct, crimes, scandals, frauds and regulatory failures, by driving positive, progressive, and purposeful reforms that achieve a fair, trusted and just system, where the service providers, regulators and government agencies provide appropriate protection and deliver good outcomes, including redress for historical wrongs.“
  • Members of the House of Lords’ Financial Services Regulations Committee, its purpose is “……..”
• Various subject-matter experts with a keen interest in optimising financial services regulation for the purpose of significantly improving consumer protections