Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps her Department is taking to help ensure that the Financial Conduct Authority responds in full to complainants against companies it has given permits to operate.

The FCA does not generally have a role in relation to managing or intervening with individual complaints between the firms it regulates and their customers.

Under the independent Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA’s) Dispute Resolution Rules, firms that are regulated by the FCA are required to operate complaints handling procedures to deal with complaints promptly and fairly.

Where complaints are not resolved through a firm’s own complaints procedures, the customer can contact the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS). The FOS is an independent body established by Parliament to provide consumers with a cost-free and quick route to resolve disputes with financial services firms. Firms are required under the FCA’s rules to co-operate with the FOS and comply promptly with any decision that the FOS may make.

The FCA is directly involved in some types of complaint, for example where a person has information about potential wrongdoing or misconduct, or an individual wants to raise a whistleblowing concern. People who are worried they have been the victim of relevant scams can also make a report to the FCA. While the FCA cannot resolve individual disputes, it can take information provided into account as part of its ongoing supervision of a firm and wider monitoring of practices in the sector. The FCA is required not to disclose confidential information it receives in the course of carrying on its functions, and will not normally be able to discuss this with the person making the complaint due to statutory restrictions on disclosing certain information.

Anyone directly affected by the way in which the FCA has exercised, or failed to exercise, its functions (other than its legislative functions) under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 may also complain about the FCA using the Financial Regulators Complaints Scheme. This would include, for example, complaints about the FCA’s actions supervising a relevant firm. The FCA website gives details of how to make a complaint about the regulators at https://www.fca.org.uk/about/complain-about-regulators

The FCA is fully accountable to Parliament for how it discharges its statutory functions, and there are a range of mechanisms in place to provide accountability and oversight. Treasury Ministers and officials meet regularly with the FCA to discuss a wide range of issues, including its overall performance in furthering its statutory objectives.