As many already know, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has announced it is investigating car finance commissions. This is specifically for agreements entered into before January 2021, and concentrating on those agreements with the now banned discretionary commission arrangement, where a dealer could essentially earn themselves a higher commission by giving the consumer a higher rate of interest.
Dealers who did not involve themselves in these discretionary commission models do not need to concern themselves. Those dealers who did operate a discretionary commission arrangement will just need to sit tight and await the outcome of the investigation. You cannot change what has been done and this investigation is exactly about what has already been done.
Further, this investigation will be about the policies set by the lenders, and so the focus will be on those lenders.
Consumers will, no doubt, still write to dealers as they have been doing for the last few years. We have successfully dealt with hundreds of such claims for our members and continue to do so as part of their membership.
John McDougall is our in-house lead on this issue. John will be attending a free seminar hosted by the FCA to find out more, directly from the horse’s mouth. We will, of course, continue to keep you updated and look out for our members’ interests but, if you want to tune in on Wednesday, 24 January 2024, click on the link below to register:
FCA Webinar: Temporary changes to handling rules for motor finance complaints
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