Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether the Financial Conduct Authority regularly undertakes spot checks of firms offering loans to ensure that the contract details accurately reflect the advertised annual percentage rate of the financial product.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is responsible for regulating the consumer credit market. It is part of a robust regulatory system which is helping to deliver the government’s vision for a well-functioning and sustainable consumer credit market which meets consumers’ needs.

The FCA oversees firms through its supervision strategy. In the FCA Mission – Approach to Supervision April 2019, the FCA set out that to make the best use of its resources and deliver the greatest public value, it takes a proportionate approach to supervising firms. It supervises most firms as members of a portfolio of firms that share a common business model. It analyses each portfolio and agrees a strategy to take action on firms posing the greatest harm.

Firms are required by FCA rules to include a representative APR in certain circumstances. The FCA’s handbook (CONC 3.5) provides further rules and guidance on when a representative APR must be shown, how it should be denoted and the level of prominence it must be given.

While not all consumers will get the advertised APR, they should be told in advance of entering into the agreement what APR they have been offered and this will be shown in the pre-contract information required to be given under the Consumer Credit Act 1974.

If a customer is concerned that they may have been mis-sold a credit agreement, they may wish to consider making a formal complaint to the firm in question in the first instance. If they then feel that their complaint has not been dealt with satisfactorily, they are able to refer the matter to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) – an independent body set up to provide arbitration in such cases.