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.