FIN.

Category - Consumer Finance

Consumer Credit
Regulated Mortgages

FSM Bill completes third day

The FSM Bill has completed its third day in the Committee stage in the Lords, and will enter its fourth day on 1 July. At the first session, on 22 June, the Committee discussed several core conduct issues, including:...

Emma Radmore
30/06/2026

FCA speaks on later life lending

Emad Aladhal, FCA director of retail banking, spoke on later life lending and its potential to become the fourth pillar in retirement. He said that at the moment, very few people think about housing wealth when...

Emma Radmore
16/06/2026

Consumer lender enters administration

Amplify Capital (U.K.) Limited, a consumer lender and credit broker which traded as Reevo Money and My Community Finance , has gone into administration with Robert Spence and Gareth Slater of Interpath Advisory...

Emma Radmore
12/06/2026

Regulators publish mortgage lending statistics

The FCA and PRA have published their mortgage lending statistics for Q1 2026. The latest findings show that: The outstanding value of all residential mortgage loans increased by 0.7% from the previous quarter, to £1...

Laura Wiles
10/06/2026

Debt resolution firms enter administration

Two debt resolution firms authorised to carry out debt purchasing and debt collection activities have entered administration. Silicon Marketing Limited entered administration on 21 May 2026, with Carrie James and Nick...

Laura Wiles
05/06/2026

FCA updates on BNPL TPR register

As of 2 June, 8 firms that currently provide BNPL products that will be regulated as deferred payment credit from 15 July have registered with the FCA’s temporary permissions regime, meaning they can continue...

Stephen Wilson
02/06/2026

Government confirms CCA reform plans

The Government has finally published its policy statement on the final approach to reform of the Consumer Credit Act and its response to its consultation on Phase 1 reform. It has confirmed: it will be repealing most of...

Stephen Wilson
18/05/2026

FCA updates on BNPL registrations

The FCA has updated its website resources on the upcoming changes to buy now pay later (deferred payment credit) regulation. The window for unregulated firms currently providing services that will require regulation...

Stephen Wilson
18/05/2026

UK Finance publishes growth plan

UK Finance has published its 9 point Plan for Growth to show how the financial services sector can help with delivery of the Government’s economic growth ambitions. The 9 point plan focuses on: reducing bank...

John Connor
11/05/2026

Credit broker host enters liquidation

Kanda Products and Services Ltd, a credit broker that had a network of around 700 IARs, has entered liquidation. The firm mainly appointed as its IARs traders who wanted to introduce customers to finance for home...

Emma Radmore
08/05/2026

FCA launches CMC market review

The FCA has announced a review of claims management practices, to establish the root cause of poor practices, following increasing concerns that CMCs and law firms are sometimes failing consumers. The FCA says that...

Emma Radmore
06/05/2026

BoE publishes FPC record

The BoE has published the record from the Financial Policy Committee meeting on 27 March 2026. The meeting focused on the negative supply shock to the global economy resulting from the conflict in the Middle East...

Emma Radmore
01/04/2026

PRA and FCA consult on LTI lending

The PRA and FCA are consulting on amending the implementation of the Loan to Income flow limit to allow individual lenders to increase their share of high LTI lending but with the aim that the aggregate flow remains at...

Emma Radmore
01/04/2026

FCA publishes work programme

The FCA has published its work programme for 2026/27 together with its perimeter report. The plans stress the FCA’s drive to be a smarter, more data driven regulator, and include detail on how it will use AI to...

Emma Radmore
26/03/2026

FCA warns of Annex I firm risks

The FCA has warned regulated firms about the need to do proper checks when dealing with Annex I firms such as unregulated lenders, safe custody providers, money brokers and financial leasing companies. It reminds firms...

Emma Radmore
23/03/2026

FCA updates mortgage lending statistics

The Q4 2025 mortgage lending statistics show a slight fall in the outstanding value of all residential mortgage loans, but the value is still significantly higher than in the corresponding period last year. Similarly...

Emma Radmore
10/03/2026

FCA updates on CCR009

The FCA has published resources on the new CCR009 return that replaces the CCR004 and CCR005 and elements of CCR002 and CCR007 for ancillary credit firms. Most firms will need to submit annually, but firms with annual...

Emma Radmore
26/02/2026

FCA makes final BNPL rules

The FCA has made its final rules that will apply to firms offering Buy Now Pay Later (Deferred Payment Credit) products that fall newly within the scope of the RAO from 15 July. The rules are effectively a tailored...

Stephen Wilson
11/02/2026

FCA notes open banking progress

The FCA says that in the past year, more than 16 million users have engaged with open banking, with the number of payments increasing by 53% year on year. It says a key driver of this is the rise of VRPs which make up...

Emma Radmore
17/12/2025

FCA sets out roadmap for mortgage rule reforms

The FCA has published a roadmap on modernising mortgage rules. The FCA launched a discussion paper in June 2025 on areas in which changes could be made to the current mortgages framework. It now publishes its feedback...

Laura Wiles
15/12/2025

Regulators update Regulatory Initiatives Grid

The latest edition of the Regulatory Initiatives Grid updates on timelines for 124 live initiatives across the 9 organisations covered by the grid. The press release heralding the publication highlights the themes of:...

Emma Radmore
11/12/2025

Regulators report on mutuals

The PRA and FCA have published a report on the mutuals landscape, looking at the importance of mutuals to the financial sector, and the measures the regulators take to ensure proportionality in regulation. The report...

Emma Radmore
08/12/2025

FCA speaks on future of mortgage market

Nikhil Rathi, FCA chief executive, has delivered a speech on the future of the mortgage market at the L&G Mortgage Club’s 30th Anniversary Conference. The speech highlighted that while the market is currently...

Laura Wiles
11/11/2025

Domestic supplier BNPL exemption confirmed

HM Treasury has made the legislation confirming that domestic premises suppliers will be exempt from the credit broking activity in relation to deferred payment credit (or BNPL) agreements, when the activity becomes a...

Emma Radmore
05/11/2025

FOS sees sharp drop in cases

The latest quarterly data on complaints from the FOS show new cases dropping by more than a third, largely because professional representatives are bringing fewer cases since the FOS changed its charging model. The FOS...

Emma Radmore
29/10/2025

FCA consults on motor finance redress scheme

The FCA has decided that a compensation scheme for customers treated unfairly when taking out motor finance is the right way to go, and is consulting on the terms of the scheme. Its research shows that: based on data...

Emma Radmore
07/10/2025

FCA makes new rules

In the FCA’s latest Handbook Notice, it confirms new rules made at its October Board Meeting to: ICOBS to increase the medical condition premium trigger point for consumers with pre-existing medical conditions to...

Emma Radmore
07/10/2025

FCA updates on open banking progress

The FCA has published a research note it commissioned to collect views on open banking and finance in the UK. It wanted a good understanding of the current state of open banking to help to inform future development. The...

Emma Radmore
07/10/2025

FCA talks to Commons about motor finance

The FCA made one of its regular appearances before the Treasury Select Committee on 9 September. The session focused on motor finance. It updated the Committee that there were around 30 million agreements entered into...

Emma Radmore
11/09/2025

FCA blogs on evolution of consumer credit

Alison Waters, director of consumer finance at the FCA, has looked at what the next decade holds for consumer credit. She noted the 2024 Financial Lives survey which found that 84% of UK adults had at least one credit...

Emma Radmore
14/08/2025

FCA warns CMCs on motor finance promotions

The FCA has formally warned CMCs that they must ensure any financial promotions they put out about motor finance claims are Consumer Duty compliant. It has had increasing interaction with CMC firms and, between 1...

Emma Radmore
05/08/2025

FCA to consult on motor finance redress scheme

In the light of the Supreme Court judgment of 1 August, the FCA has confirmed it will consult on a redress scheme. It says it is clear that there have been breaches of the law and its rules where motor finance firms did...

Emma Radmore
04/08/2025

Motor finance commission: Supreme Court allows lender appeals

The Supreme Court has delivered its long-awaited judgment on motor finance commissions, and has allowed lender appeals on 2 of the 3 matters under appeal. It upheld only the CCA unfair relationship claim.�This post has been drafted on the basis of Lord Reed’s speech. We will publish updated and more detailed articles in the light of the published judgment.
Delivering the judgment, Lord Reed described the nature of the relationships involved. He focussed on how the car dealer is dependent on the finance being agreed in order to sell a car. He spoke of various actions the dealer could take if, for instance, the lender would not advance enough credit or the monthly payments would be too much for the customer to pay. The key, he said, is that the dealer has a commercial interest in the negotiations over the finance package, which will continue until the package is entered into.
He moved on to discuss how the consumer does not deal directly with the finance company, although the loan agreement is directly between the consumer and the finance company. The motor dealer will make all the arrangements. It does not act as agent of the customer, is not remunerated by the customer and does not give the customer any reassurance that it is putting its commercial interests aside – and it could not do that! The Supreme Court noted that FCA rules require the dealer to disclose that commission is receivable if it could affect the dealer’s impartiality or have a material impact on the customer’s decision, but that nothing in the regulatory regime requires lender or dealers to disclose the existence or amount of any commission payment or to get the customer’s consent.
The customers seeking to recover from the lenders the commission that had been paid to the brokers all contended that:

the finance companies committed the common law tort of bribery by paying commission to the dealers
the dealers owed the customers a fiduciary duty and as such could not have any personal interest in the conclusion of the transaction and if that is so, acceptance of the commission was a breach of this, and the lenders had dishonestly assisted in the breach by paying the commission

Mr Johnson additionally claimed the relationship was unfair under the CCA.
The Supreme Court, noting that the Court of Appeal’s stance had shocked the lenders and the FCA, stated:

the payment of commission was not a bribe. The car dealers clearly and properly had an interest in the finance being arranged, and clearly wanted to sell the vehicles at a profit, and so clearly owed no duty to the customers. Each of the 3 parties (lender, dealer, customer) was engaged at arm’s length pursuing their own interests, and no-one could think otherwise;
for the same reason, no-one could think the dealer was acting as a fiduciary because it was at all times pursuing its commercial interests. The Supreme Court said that the distinguishing obligation of a fiduciary is often described as a “duty of single-minded loyalty to the person for whom they act”;
the Court of Appeal had failed to understand that the dealer had its own interests and mistakenly thought the dealer was acting in the interests of the customer once the customer had chosen the car. It was also wrong to take the approach that because the customer trusted the dealer and may have been vulnerable this meant that the dealer was acting as fiduciary.

So the Court of Appeal was wrong on the first two issues. On the unfair relationships issue, the Supreme Court said that the fact there may have been no or only partial disclosure of commission did not of itself make a relationship unfair. There are many factors to consider. Here, a major factor was that the commission was 55% of the total charge for credit, and that large figure is a good indication of unfairness.� Additionally here the documentation was misleading in that they did not disclose that the dealer and lender had an agreement that gave the lender first refusal – in fact it gave the impression that the dealer would go to a panel of lenders to get the best price for the loan. The fact that Mr Johnson did not read any of the documents he was given was not a persuasive factor against a decision of unfairness, given that the information in question was well hidden – even though, had Mr Johnson read it, it could have led him to discover the amount of the commission. The Supreme Court said the lender should pay to Mr Johnson the amount of commission plus a commercial rate of interest, and that because what the Court of Appeal had said was full of mistakes, the lender’s appeal had to be allowed so as to substitute an order in Mr Johnson’s favour on different terms to the Court of Appeal’s.
The Supreme Court also explained that it had refused the Treasury’s application to intervene since the Treasury wanted to discuss the economic impact of any decision, which is not within the Court’s interest.
 

Emma Radmore
01/08/2025

FCA finalises ban following Court of Appeal support

The FCA has finalised its decision to ban Markos Markou from financial services and fine him �10,000, following the Court of Appeal supporting the FCA’s position in December 2024, and the Supreme Court rejecting his application for permission to appeal further. The Upper Tribunal had asked the FCA to reconsider the ban and said it should not impose a fine, but the FCA believed that decision to be “incorrect and irrational” and referred it to the Court of Appeal which, while not wholly reversing the Tribunal’s findings, found the ban was the correct decision, but considered the appropriate amount of fine to be �10,000 rather than the �25,000 proposed by the FCA.

Emma Radmore
29/07/2025

FCA announces more firm failures

The FCA has announced that two more firms have failed: Argentex LLP, authorised to provide e-money and payment services and also wealth management, went into special administration under the Payment and EMI Insolvency...

Emma Radmore
24/07/2025

FCA makes first set of mortgage reform rules

Following its short consultation, the FCA has finalised the package of measures that will achieve the first stage of the planned mortgage reforms. The changes address primarily remortgaging and will make it easier for...

Emma Radmore
22/07/2025

Mansion House speech supports Leeds Reforms

The Chancellor’s Mansion House speech, delivered in the evening of 15 July, highlighted many of the Leeds reforms, and set out the Chancellor’s key priorities. She highlighted: for capital raising, recent changes to the...

Emma Radmore
16/07/2025

BNPL regulatory changes made

The legislation making changes to Buy-Now-Pay-Later regulation have now been made and take effect on 15 July for the purpose of allowing the FCA to make its rules. This means the new regulated activities take effect on...

Emma Radmore
15/07/2025

Government announces “Leeds reforms”

After the Edinburgh reforms, we now have the Leeds reforms! The Government has announced an ambitious package of measures to attract inward investment into the UK and financial services businesses. Rachel Reeves announced the UK’s first Financial Services Growth and Competitiveness sector plan. The plans include:

giving consumers support to invest;
create good skilled jobs;
encouraging banks to offer investment opportunities to people with cash in low-interest accounts;
encouraging the industry to highlight to consumers the opportunity to invest when they can – the Government says that, based on current trends, if consumers move �2,000 from low interest accounts into stocks and shares, they could be over �9,000 better off in 20 years’ time;
the BoE will allow more lending at over 4.5 times a buyer’s income and simplified FCA Rules, if adopted, will make remortgaging easier. The changes will also allow the Nationwide to make its “Helping Hands” scheme available to lower income borrowers – now the thresholds are �30,000 for solo and �50,000 for joint applicants (�5,000 lower than previously);
there will be a new government-backed Mortgage Guarantee Scheme to ensure high loan-to-value mortgages are available in times of economic uncertainty;
FOS will need to align its decisions more closely with FCA rules;
the SMCR will be radically streamlined;
the FCA is to review how the Consumer Duty affects and applies to wholesale firms;
the MREL threshold will be raised to �25-49bn;
the Basel 3.1 rules will come in from January 2027;
reform of the ring-fencing regime;
a major FPC review of bank capital requirements;
providing bespoke support to fintechs;
greater financial capacity for the British Business Bank; and
progressing the Berne Financial Services Agreement, so that it is fully implemented by the end of the year.

See our separate posts on some of these initiatives!

Emma Radmore
15/07/2025

Regulators increase mortgage lending threshold

The PRA has amended its Rulebook and the FCA has amended its Guidance on the de minimis threshold for the Loan to Income flow limit in mortgage lending. The Financial Policy Committee had recommended increasing the...

Laura Wiles
08/07/2025

Court looks at “business test” when loans are refinanced

In a repossession case brought by an unregulated lender, Principal Bridging Limited (PBL), the County Court found that where a loan is used to refinance previous borrowing, it is the purpose for which the original loan is taken out which determines whether it is “wholly or predominantly for the purposes of a business” for the purposes of Articles 60C and 60O of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Regulated Activities Order) 2001 (the RAO).
In this case, the borrower, Mr Lewis took out a bridging loan with PBL (secured as a second charge loan against his primary residence) which was used to refinance an earlier loan (with a different lender) which in turn had been use to refinance an original loan (from a third lender). It was taken as a matter of fact that Mr Lewis had used a maximum of 50% of the original for business purposes and, therefore, it had not been used “wholly or predominantly for the purposes of a business” carried on by him (and, therefore, was as a matter of fact a regulated mortgage contract as the exemption under Article 61A(1)(c) of the RAO. However, the Court found that PBL had no way of knowing this and that Mr Lewis had made repeated representations that he would use the loan PBL made for business purposes and, therefore, the loan was unregulated and not a regulated mortgage contract.
In the alternative, the Court also found that if the PBL loan�was a regulated mortgage contract, it would still have been just and equitable for PBL to enforce the loan due to the repeated representations made by Mr Lewis.
Following on from these findings, and taking into account Mr Lewis history of defaulting on previous lending the interest rate charged by PBL was not an unenforceable penalty.
Lastly, it followed that the relationship between PBL and Mr Lewis could not be said to be unfair for the purposes of Sections 140A-C of the Consumer Credit Act 1974.

Stephen Wilson
04/07/2025

FOS complaints double in 2024/25

The FOS has published its complaints data for 2024/25, which shows that over 305,000 complaints were received – this is a 54% increase on the number received in 2023/24, and the highest yearly total of complaints...

Laura Wiles
02/07/2025