Oct 19 – The bigger ticking bombs
The housing market appears stable, with forecasts suggesting that transactions will reach 1.2 million in 2019, in line with the long-term average. However, according to analysis by Zoopla and Hometrack, activity in the market is not evenly spread geographically. Sales volumes in the South East and London, where house prices are high and stamp duty […]
Oct 19 – Picking the right remedies
The FCA is due to deliver final remedies from its Mortgages Market Study in Q4, unanticipated events notwithstanding. AMI has already been vocal about a wholesale move to allow execution-only sales to re-enter the mainstream market. It is a mistake, and one that risks the FCA’s own Mortgage Market Rules on advice being gamed. AMI […]
Sept 19 – SM&CR Q&A
Further to our previous newsflash in July introducing AMI’s Senior Manager and Certification Regime guides and support,
Sept 19 – Who is Sonia
Lenders are currently heavily involved in making plans for the abolition of LIBOR, however this may come as a bit of a surprise to intermediaries. The lack of public utterances so far masks a vast raft of work going on in the background. For many they will replace this with SONIA as the alternative market […]
Sept 19 – Fearful of FOS
The Financial Ombudsman Service is obliged to publish decisions which have been referred to an Ombudsman. Firms should be looking at its website and searching for mortgage based decisions to update themselves on issues which might arise from the approach being taken. We have looked at four recent decisions with three of those decided in […]
Aug 19 – Increasing compliance with the off-payroll working rules (IR35) from April 2020
In 2017 HMRC introduced off-payroll working rules reform to the public sector.
Aug 19 – A fairer FOS
FOS has now published proposals for its future funding having considered stakeholders’ feedback and the principles FOS has established in its previous conversations. It is proposing to rebalance the levy and case fee to aim for a 50:50 split, with a significantly greater proportion of their income from the FOS levy as opposed to case […]
Aug 19 – Only the headline
Freelance journalist Simon Read brought me sharply to attention when he wrote recently about whether anyone reads newspapers anymore. The march of on-line and the ability to get anything on Twittersphere, Messenger or Whatsapp has totally changed “communication”. As Trump continually condemns fake news, the challenge we all face is deciding who is gaslighting who. […]
Jul 19 – The truth that comes from advice
Following the financial crash in 2008, the Mortgage Market Review (MMR) introduced new rules in 2014 which followed a series of connected but distinct consultations that then produced an all-encompassing Policy Statement. As part of this it is important to recall some of the content of the MMR paper and its rationale: “For some time […]
Jul 19 – SM&CR guides and support
We have produced a suite of documents to assist firms in ensuring they are ready for the new FCA Senior Managers and Certification Regime on 9 December 2019.
