The Financial Services Authority is stepping up its campaign to regulate the customer service practices of small firms.
As part of the FSA’s Treating Customers Fairly (TCF) programme, businesses in the financial advice, mortgage and insurance industries will have their progress assessed.
A rolling programme of assessments, starting in Northern Ireland, will cover 11,300 retail outlets within the next three years.
Stephen Bland, director of small firms at the FSA, warned that the deadline for businesses to prove they were treating their customers fairly was fast approaching.
“It is imperative that firms engage with TCF and drive up standards,” he said. “The new style roadshows together with the assessments will help accelerate this process.
Bland said that although new measures would involve additional cost, this should be outweighed by the positive effect on consumer protection.
“We wholeheartedly welcome the FSA's package of measures,” said Mark Rothery, chairman of the Smaller Businesses Practitioner Panel.
“This strategy will incentivise those smaller firms motivated to comply; and act as a meaningful deterrent to the laggards that either seek to do otherwise or who try to fly under the FSA's radar.”
For more information on the FSA’s TCF programme visit www.fsa.gov.uk/pages/Doing/small_firms/general/tcf/index.shtml
© Crimson Business Ltd. 2008
