FCA won’t set out next steps of finance review until May 2025

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has confirmed it will set out the next steps into its review of discretionary commission arrangements (DCA) in May 2025.

The original review was due to be completed in September this year.

A pause on complaint handling in relation to DCAs will also be extended until December 4, 2025.

Under the FCA’s proposals, firms will not have to issue a final response to DCA complaints until after December 4 at the earliest.

The FCA said this is due to the fact that its next steps could involve consulting on a redress scheme and it may take until December to confirm how this would be implemented by finance firms. It also said the volume of complaints coming through in relation to DCAs threatened to “overwhelm” the current systems in place to deal with them.

It’s now more likely that there will be structured redress system put in place for consumers by the FCA, although no final decisions have been made yet.

The FCA said that moving back the results of the review to May 2025 will also give it more time to analyse the data it has collected from firms and assess the outcome of the Barclays judicial review of the Financial Ombudsman’s decision to uphold a DCA complaint.

The regulator also said that while some firms had provided the necessary data, others hadn’t within the requested deadline and this has slowed down the review process.

Read full article at AM Online https://www.am-online.com/news/fca-won-t-set-out-next-steps-of-finance-review-until-may-2025