FCA's warnings useless (COL)

Col is of course far worse than this story.

The FCA found out from their own discussions with the Col brothers and advisors that the register entry was not all that it was cracked up to be. The FCA allowed another £3.8m to be invested in spite of knowing no permissions were in place, this represents something like 20% of the total invested.

When the FCA found out about the false entry they quietly changed the register entry themselves* and requested the Col Brothers to remove FCA references from Emails, website etc.

When the FCA actually did something (several weeks later) to sort out the mess of their own making they requested** Col to cease carrying out regulated business.  A couple of weeks passed and thanks to this forum the FCA found out that the website had been taken down.

No warning was issued at any time. The FCA instructed Col to inform investors***, they took no action themselves, needless to say this didn't happen.

I've had it confirmed by FOI

The FCA did nothing to protect consumers, one of their core remits laid down by Parliament. FOIs requesting how consumers were protected by the FCA remain unanswered

The FCA are now trying to further limit their already limited liability (financial) through their consultation.  We are concentrating on their duty to protect consumers in our submission. As I have said elsewhere on this forum the timing of this consutation is 'interesting' the Complaints Commissioner has been requesting it for years.


* FOI

** FOI

*** FOI

The case with Col is clear.  Other platforms I can't say. I had an initial look at Lendy (FOIs sent and answered) but IMHO there is a far less clear case there.

As a general principal the process is

complaint .....complaints commissioner (cc) if not satisfied with FCA response ..... ex-gratia payment suggested by the cc if he upholds your complaint. The FCA then responds to the cc's recommendation. 

All complaints are dealt with on a case by case basis so if you have complaints about the FCAs actions on more than one platform you should either raise them on one complaint (could be messy and complicated) or raise separate complaints.

Because of this post I thought Id better check my emails to see what Ive complained to the FCA about! (theres been so many!)

I can see I complained about their handling of Lendy, FS and Col. Each complaint theyve kept me updated every 6 weeks with "We're deferring complaints until our investigation is completed".

Do I need to do anything else? (ie: complain to the Complaints Commissioner)

Ive just looked again. The actual timescale of updates they have given me are:

For Collateral, the Complaints Investigator has said "every 6 months". Her last email to me (received 3/07/2020) said the investigation is 'at an advanced stage'.

For FS, the Complaints Investigator has said my complaint is in 'its final stages' and will email me in 6 weeks.

For Lendy, the Complaints Investigator has said they wont contact me again until the investigation has been completed.

Building a regulatory environment for the future

Speech by our CEO, Nikhil Rathi, delivered at City Week 2021.


Highlights

• We will rigorously review all firms seeking UK authorisation.