FCA has published a 14 point action plan for banks and building societies. The plan aims to ensure:
- that firms pass on interest rate rises to savers appropriately;
- good and effective communication with customers; and
- that firms are offering better savings rate deals.
The plan includes:
- requiring firms that offer the lowest rates to provide their Consumer Duty fair value assessments by 31 August 2023 – and FCA will take action by the end of the year against those that can’t demonstrate fair value;
- FCA looking at when firms change their rates following any base rate change;
- publishing a best to worst table of easy access savings rates every 6 months;
- reviewing performance on cash ISA to cash ISA switching;
- FCA reviewing the effectiveness of firms’ engagement with customers by the end of March 2024;
- expecting firms to use their fair value assessments of on-sale products to ensure themselves and FCA that they provide fair value, and accelerating their fair value reviews of off-sale accounts;
- expecting firms to take action to prompt customers with lower rate accounts to consider alternatives;
- FCA expecting all firms to consider the effectiveness of customer communications – and for larger firms to provide it with an evaluation by the end of 2023; and
- firms committing to support consumer financial resilience – large firms will need to support a targeted firm-by-firm communications campaign.