You may have have heard of the FCA but do not know much about what they do and how it can help you. This article is designed to provide you with the information you need to feel confident that you are choosing the right car finance provider.
Who are the FCA?
The FCA regulates financial services firms in the UK, including banks and building societies, mortgage and insurance brokers and financial advisors. They also regulate firms who offer consumer credit, which includes credit card issuers, payday lenders and debt management firms.
What do they do?
They want consumers to be able to trust that the firms they regulate and have the customers’ best interests at heart by providing them with appropriate products and services. To achieve this the FCA has three objectives:
Protect consumers
The FCA work to protect consumers from the harm that can be caused by bad conduct in the financial services industry. They act to ensure that a firm has its customers at the heart of how it does business, giving them appropriate products and services, and putting their protection above profits or remuneration. To make sure consumers are protected and treated fairly, they monitor which firms and individuals are able to enter the financial markets, making sure that they meet their standards before they authorise them. They then supervise how they work and stop those that are not meeting their standards from carrying out the activities that they regulate. Where they find that firms are not following their rules, they intervene. This can mean stepping in to impose penalties, to stop them from trading or to secure redress, and ensure that consumers receive the information they need in the right way, so they can make the best decisions for themselves.
Protect financial markets
They protect and enhance the integrity of the UK financial system. The FCA aim to support and empower a healthy and successful financial system, where firms can thrive and consumers can place their trust in transparent and open markets. Their work focuses on ensuring that financial markets provide appropriate levels of access and information to satisfy the needs of the consumers and firms that use them. They aim to ensure that firms have a resilient infrastructure, with strong risk management, individual accountability and a responsible culture. The integrity of the UK financial markets is heavily reliant on the security and activity of the wider European and international financial system. So it is critical that they are involved in influencing international policy, as much of our markets and wholesale regulation is shaped by European policy developments.
Promote competition
They promote effective competition in the interests of consumers. They have shaped their approach to competition around the benefits for consumers, which includes better value, genuine choice, quality products and services, and useful innovation in financial services. The balance they have to strike is in ensuring that only those firms that are able to meet certain requirements are authorised, while also not imposing excessive regulatory barriers that may then restrict new entrants and thereby inhibit competition, diversity and choice in the market. They use market studies as a tool to analyse the effectiveness of competition in the markets they regulate, closely examining particular markets to explore any concerns they have. Where they find problems they can intervene, for example through making rules or guidance, or using their enforcement powers.
Consumer Credit
Since April 2014, the FCA commenced regulating the consumer credit industry, which includes credit card issuers, payday lenders, loan and consumer finance businesses, finance credit brokers and many more types of consumer credit business.
Go Car Credit Limited has been authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, permission number 727117 . Which means our customers can rest assured that we are providing car finance that is authorised by the FCA’s regulations.
More details about the FCA, including a register of firms authorised and regulated by them, is available on their website: www.fca.org.uk/consumers
Article Source – FCA – www.fca.org.uk/
