Lord Tunnicliffe – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Tunnicliffe on 2016-01-18.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the Financial Conduct Authority’s thematic review Quality of debt management advice.

Lord O’Neill of Gatley

The Government is concerned about problems in the debt management market, including the quality of advice which was highlighted by the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) thematic review.

This is why we reformed debt management regulation, transferring responsibility to the FCA’s more robust regime to better protect consumers. The FCA has put in place binding standards on firms and has a strong enforcement toolkit to take action against firms if these rules are broken.

The FCA is currently scrutinising debt management firms as part of its authorisation process. Firms which do not meet the required standards will not be able to continue to provide debt management services.