Fast Money FSA fines directors, no governance,no controls

The FSA banned its owner and director, Simon Latham, and former chief executive, Stuart Mason, from performing significant influence functions in the future. Latham has also been fined £17,500.

Fastmoney arranged regulated mortgage contracts, including regulated bridging loans, on a non-advised basis for retail customers. Between August 2005 and March 2010, Fastmoney arranged 370 regulated mortgage contracts and 18 regulated bridging loans for customers.

There were deficiencies in Fastmoney’s non-advised sales process which put its customers at risk of taking out mortgage contracts whose features, risks and costs they did not sufficiently understand. These deficiencies were first identified by the FSA during a supervisory visit after which the firm was referred to enforcement.

In particular, the FSA found that Fastmoney failed to:

establish a non-advised sales process which ensured customers took out an appropriate mortgage and were treated fairly;
ensure sales staff were competent, adhered to non-advised sales scripts and avoided giving personal recommendations to customers;
present all options to the customer in a fair and unbiased way, without recommending a specific product based on its own judgment;
ensure customers understood all the details of their product, particularly those who took out bridging loans;
and disclose clearly the cost of its services.
In addition, Latham and Mason failed in their oversight of the business. Latham delegated senior management functions to Mason who did not have the necessary knowledge, skill or understanding of the regulatory system to deal with the responsibilities.

FSA fines company £49,000 due to inadequate vetting

New advisers and ARs were not subject to adequate vetting before being appointed and were not adequately trained or monitored after appointment
The Financial Services Authority has fined Julian Harris £49,000 and banned him from performing the CF10 (compliance oversight) function and from acting as a compliance officer.
failed to:
•perform adequate due diligence on appointed representatives and advisors before appointing them;
•employ ARs who were fit and proper;
•put in place adequate training and oversight procedures for staff and maintain systems and controls at his firms; and
•to monitor their activities to ensure that they complied with regulatory requirements.
Question is how much was a an appointed representative and advisor paying Julian Harris and what did they get in return,poor publicity,client trust?

FSA’s Regional Assessment Programme

FSA’s Regional Assessment Programme and its follow up the Proactive Regulatory Review
The Regional Assessment Programme consists of Business Risk Awareness workshops to which all smaller retail firms will be invited to and then a follow up regulatory review (the Proactive Regulatory Review) on the firm. The purpose of the workshops is to give regulated firms a clear insight into the key messages of the regulatory review and through case studies to examine examples of good and bad practice as regards governance, culture and controls. The Regional Assessment Programme is starting at the end of this month with the first region being the North West. This programme is separate and additional to the RDR implementation reviews being carried out by the FSA as from the start of 2012.

Operational and Compliance consultancy reduced rates

We are able to offer reduced consultancy daily rates and a package to suit your business, so contact us today

problems associated with payment protection insurance (PPI) recurring in a new generation of products.

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) and the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) have joined forces to help prevent the problems associated with payment protection insurance (PPI) recurring in a new generation of products.

The FSA and the OFT are consulting on proposed guidance to firms in relation to payment protection products - which can fall within either regulator's remit. This is a key time as the market shifts away from PPI and firms begin to develop new products or product features - such as short-term income protection, or debt freeze or debt waiver as elements of a credit agreement or mortgage
Payment protection products within the FSA's jurisdiction
The FSA's guidance stresses that firms should ensure that product features reflect the needs of the consumers they are targeting. There are four key areas of concern that providers should think about carefully:

firms not properly identifying the target market for the protection product
the protection not reflecting the needs of the intended consumers
the benefit of a successful claim not matching the needs of the claimant, and
product features or pricing structures creating barriers to comparing products, exiting a policy or switching cover.

Contact Deemar UK Limited for more information

mortgage stream

It is imperative that a company has robust compliance system in place and we would recommend Mortgage Stream for value for money and as the name suggests it does stream line your business.

Lead generation due diligence unfair and improper practices

Small example of unfair or improper business practices with regards to lead generation and direct marketing include:

• Licensees dealing with known non-compliant lead generation businesses. For example, accepting consumer leads obtained from lead generation firms where it is known, or reasonably ought to be known, that they are employing the use of misleading marketing material, and/or making misleading claims via web-sites or other media.

• not making the true nature of the service to be provided sufficiently clear to consumers via website or other advertising content or when using other direct marketing contact methods such as, for example, telephone calls or text messaging

Check consumer licences for caterogies, ICO register for purpose, Web sites for privacy statements etc

Carry out due dilligence

The perils of email - £120,000 fine imposed for sending emails to the wrong recipients

Surrey County Council, a simple error Fine of £120,000 imposed by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO). The fine is the largest imposed on a single organisation since the ICO was granted its enhanced powers to issue fines in April 2010. The Council was fined for three serious breaches of the Data Protection Act over the last year.Council employee inadvertently emailed personal information relating to 241 adult social care service users to the incorrect group email address.

New rules on electronic marketing and cookies

Website owners have one year to comply
From 26 May 2011, the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, covering electronic marketing such as emails, faxes and text messages, will change. They include changes to the rules for cookies on websites, and introduce new powers for the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) to impose fines and to investigate when the law may have been broken.

The previous rule on using cookies for storing information was that you had to tell people how you used cookies, and tell them how they could 'opt out' if they objected. Many websites did this by putting information about cookies in their privacy policies and giving people the possibility of 'opting out'.

The new requirement is essentially that cookies can only be placed on machines where the user or subscriber has given their consent.

Important KFI changes 5th July 2011

The change came into effect on April 6th 2011 and had to be fully implemented by July 5th 2011. If you have not done so recently, please make sure your KFIs for clients is compliant. All KFIs should have the following details:

Make Sure you can afford your mortgage if your income falls

The money advice information sheet "You can afford your mortgage now, but what if...?" will help you consider the risks. You can get a free copy from hhtp://www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk or by calling 0300 500 5000"

Compliance procedures manual:

•Structure & process (All)
•Compliance monitoring & support plan (All)
•Licences (All)
•Agreements (includes due diligence)
•Approved persons (FSA only)
•ICOB process (FSA only)
•MCOB process (FSA only)
•Debt management process & procedures (Settlements, Debt Management, IVA's, Bankruptcy etc)
•Client money
•Collections process & procedures
•T & C scheme and records (Continuous performance development)
•Treating Customers Fairly (FSA only but recommend that all should follow principle)
•Complaints procedure & register
•Marketing procedure & sign-off register
•Fraud/money laundering
•Data protection
•Notifications breaches register

Deemar Network Trade Mark Services

We provide varying types of service including:
o Trade mark audits
o Clearance searches
o Registration of Trade marks in the UK and abroad
What we can assist with:
Trade Mark Audits
We shall be happy to discuss your requirements by analysing the trade marks your business uses and advising you on a cost effective strategy for protecting your valuable brands.
Searches
We provide reliable searches and evaluate the results to give you a clear indication whether a trade mark is free to be used and registered.
Trade Mark Registrations
We are able to apply directly for UK Trade Mark registrations, we negotiate with the Trade Marks Registry to overcome official objections to achieve the best possible protection.
International Trade Registrations
Once you have filed a U.K. application, you can extend your protection to foreign countries that are signatories to the Madrid Protocol. We shall be pleased to provide you with more details.
Foreign Registrations
We have a world-wide network of reliable associates to able to assist in countries that are not part of the Madrid Protocol.

Debt management we can help!

o General: Description of business model
o Sign off for Advertising, marketing and promotion materials
o Web site sign off and monitoring
o Assists with the due diligence on marketing companies
o Contact with customers i.e. call scripts, monitoring, questionnaires
o Pre-contract information: refund policy
o Contract terms: terms and conditions
o Client money accounts Handling money: Disbursements
o File audit and call monitoring audits: procedures to show that best advice has been provided
o Financial position: procedures and criteria and financial assessment material
o Compliance manual or monitoring programme
o Complaint handling
o Training and competence (continuous Performance development process) training records
o Money laundering
o Disaster recovery including Data governance controls
o Collections processes and systems
o Licences i.e. OFT, ICO etc

Data Governance controls

School in Southern England recently fined over £50,000 due to a lap top going missing,information was not encrypted.Part of our services include a total review of all data protection areas,providing comprehensive overview and remedial actions.

Bribery Act came into force today

The Bribery Act came into force today creating offences that carry prison terms of up to 10 years and unlimited fines.
The Act creates four distinct criminal offences of bribing another; being bribed; bribing a foreign official and (for commercial organisations) failing to prevent bribery.

Head of the Crown Prosecution Service said: "While the Act takes a robust approach to commercial bribery, it also applies to individuals who attempt to influence the application of rules, regulations and normal procedures.

Due Diligence checks

Companies should ensure that they carry out due diligence on marketing companies who they source business from.
It is apparent from the due diligence we have carried out,that a number of companies do not have the correct CCL licence / ICO registration for DPA and their web sites are mis-leading or are none compliant.
We have created a register of marketing companies where we have already completed the Due Diligence on, which includes acceptable and those that have failed.
Let us have your comments

Selling PPI MPPI register OFT

Reminder about registering your Compliance Officer with OFT

In March this year the Competition Commission introduced new PPI rules which extend beyond those of ICOBS.

These new rules are supervised by the OFT, not the FSA, and require registration of the Compliance Officer that is responsible for PPI within a firm with OFT.

The details of a firms’ Compliance Officer had to be registered with the OFT by 21 April 2011.

New regulator

Here we go again FCA by 2012, OFT Financial Services sector likely to come under FCA at a later date!!

So, what does FCA stand for THE FINANCIAL CONDUCT AUTHORITY?

‘A key task will be to ensure that the conduct of participants is compatible with fair and safe markets. The FCA will, therefore, focus more closely on wholesale conduct than the FSA. It will adopt a more issues and sector-based supervisory approach across the 24,500 firms which it will regulate for conduct and prudential purposes.

A considerable investment in resources will be needed to deal with these significant
Supervisory responsibilities’

So we are going to change as well

At Deemar (UK) Limited we are keen to provide an efficient and methodical approach with our clients, providing piece of mind and more importantly providing value for money.

We are often asked ‘Can we recommend a company’ i.e. marketing companies, Data governance consultants, IT specialists, Trade marking agents, legal advice, accounts advice etc. We already deal with multiple regulators and are aware of how confusing the different regulatory requirements can be….and with regulatory issues being added through the European community it can only become more confusing.

So, we thought why not have a number of these services under one roof? This assists with compliance strategy and planning, more importantly, we ensure that it fits within your existing procedures and systems which ensures clarity and keeps the costs down for your business.

Let us have your comments on what you want from a consultancy firm.