After a very quiet week in the run up to the UK Bank Holiday weekend, the regulator was back in action, updating on its consultations on wholesale data markets and savings offers, and detailing enforcement actions including yet another case involving the British Steel Pension Scheme.

Enforcement

Insurance group Direct Line has agreed a voluntary requirement after being found to have charged existing customers more than new customers for renewal. It’s the first time a formal voluntary requirement has been agreed with a firm in connection with the regulator’s motor and home insurance pricing rules.

PS21/11 general insurance pricing practices

Two former directors of CFP Management Ltd have been banned and fined as a result of providing unsuitable advice on transferring out of defined benefit pension schemes. CFP gave advice on 1,470 transfers worth more than £392m ($495m) between April 21 2015 and October 31, 2017. Toni Fox designed the transfer model and signed off on almost all of the advice. Fox and David Price had oversight of the transfer model. Over 99% of the advice was to transfer, and over 90% did not comply with FCA rules.

The advice given did not take proper consideration of clients’ financial circumstances, objectives, attitude to risk and capacity for loss, and 33 clients were members of the British Steel Pension Scheme.

Fox has been fined £681,536 ($861,000) and Price £632,594 ($799,000) and both have been banned from carrying out any regulated activity. The case has been referred to the Upper Tribunal.

Rules and consultations

Information from nine firms on the value offered to customers by their savings products is currently being examined by the FCA. An update will be published later this autumn but the regulator has already noted “greater availability of higher interest rates in both term limited and easy access accounts” and “moves by some savings providers to align the rates available on accounts currently on sale and those now closed”.

The firms were contacted in the wake of the introduction of the new UK Consumer Duty in July 2023.

PS22/9: A new Consumer Duty

Publications

An update report on progress with the regulator’s wholesale data markets study was published. There is no intention currently to refer any of the three markets to the Competition and Markets Authority. However, concerns remain about the market power of large, established forms reducing competition, and “commercial practices that could increase complexity and reduce transparency in pricing and contractual terms”.

The study was launched in March 2023 and the FCA is still inviting views.