Payments Association publishes response to FCA CP21/13 A New Consumer Duty, raising extra burden concerns for firms
London, United Kingdom. 3rd August 2021: The The Payments Association, which promotes collaboration and innovation across payments, has today published a paper containing the community’s responses to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) CP21/13 “A New Consumer Duty” Call for Evidence, highlighting how an additional Consumer Duty would be unlikely to enhance the customer centricity of those payments firms that are not providing sufficient value, while adding compliance and benchmarking costs to those that are already doing so.
In the paper, the Payments Association also questions whether Consumer Duty needs to apply to all firms in the payments industry, especially as most firms in the sector deal with other firms that also do not deal directly with retail consumers.
The consultation response details how the Price and Value outcome risks creating an overly rigid framework, which could stifle growth and innovation, and may be detrimental to the users of payment services and e-money. Firms will need to be able to adapt to changes in market conditions and to react to the (often rapidly evolving) needs of their customers. Price controls are not an appropriate regulatory tool in this context, and it is likely to be extremely difficult for firms or for the FCA to demonstrate compliance or non-compliance with the proposed ‘fair value’ test. More specifically, the paper fears the significant risks that imposing pricing controls could inadvertently undermine competition in the payment sector. The Payments Association community’s concern is that this proposal raises serious questions in relation to how the FCA would assess what is a ‘fair price’ and does not think that this is a determination that would be best or effectively made by a regulator. Although The Payments Association notes that the FCA does not intend to use the proposed rule itself to introduce market interventions such as price caps or other price interventions, it is very keen to ensure that the FCA does not use the proposals to establish pricing intervention powers or to nudge toward particular pricing models.
Further, the Payments Association believes the FCA should take care not to conflate the concepts of price and value. Consumers do not always see value in terms of monetary arrangements, and there is a danger of reducing the concept of value to a monetary notion which does not take into account the complexities of human judgment or the different components of value such as service, user-control or feature flexibility, with the FCA becoming the arbiter of good and bad pricing structures under the guise of ensuring value.
The community’s response also considers the implications of private right of action (PROA). This proposal creates significant risks of legal uncertainty and incentivising overly defensive practices, given the breadth of the principles and the challenges of demonstrating compliance/non-compliance. The paper makes clear that this could be problematic as it could undermine the status of Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) (FOS was introduced as a redress mechanism for consumers, and therefore it is not clear why this additional right is required and in what circumstances customers would use it) and that establishing a private right of action could make a difference as to whether Payments Association members remain supportive of the Consumer Duty proposals on the whole, given the implications.
Overall, the Payments Association believes that the FCA’s proposals are far reaching and will need to be thoroughly embedded by firms, and that the proposed timeline does not allow enough time for implementation. Systems and controls will need wholesale change, and policies and procedures will need to be tailored to the Consumer Duty requirements. Measuring outcomes will be complicated and difficult for both the FCA and for firms, and appropriate dialogue needs to take place to ensure that outcomes are being measured in an authentic and realistic way. The Financial Services Act 2021 requires that the FCA must, before 1 August 2022, make such general rules about the level of care that must be provided to consumers, but it does not require those rules to apply by that time, leaving open the possibility of a transitional regime.
Tony Craddock, Director General of the The Payments Association, commented: “We’re really concerned that the FCA is trying to replace the marketplace. Its intentions are good – to get financial services firms to be customer centric and deliver the right products/services at a fair price. But by forcing firms to comply with a wide array of additional requirements to indicate that it is doing these things, the result could be less choice, higher prices, and less competition. Which is exactly the opposite of what the FCA is intending”.
Max Savoie, Partner at Sidley Austin LLP and Payments Association Project Regulator Team Member, added: “This consultation generated a lot of interest from the Payments Association’s Project Regulator team and a broad range of Payments Association members. While we welcome the FCA’s focus on ensuring positive outcomes for consumers, we are concerned that the proposals have not been appropriately tailored to payment service users and providers. We hope the FCA will take the Payments Association’s response into consideration and continue to engage with the payments and fintech sectors as it develops regulatory policy in this area.”
To download a copy of the paper, click here.
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About the Payments Association
The Payments Association, established in 2008, sets out to make payments work for everyone. To achieve this, it runs a comprehensive programme of activities for members with guidance from an independent Advisory Board of 15 payments CEOs.
These activities include a programme of digital and (when possible) face-to-face events including an online annual conference and broadcast awards dinner, numerous briefings and webinars, CEO Round Tables, and networking and training activities. The Payments Association also runs six stakeholder working groups. More than 100 volunteers collaborate on the important challenges facing our industry today, such as financial inclusion, recovering from Covid-19, financial crime, regulation, access to banking and promoting the UK globally. The Payments Association also produces research papers and reports to shed light on the big issues of the day and works closely with industry stakeholders such as the Bank of England, the FCA, HM Treasury, the Payment Systems Regulator, Pay.UK, UK Finance and Innovate Finance.
The Payments Association has over 130 members that employ over 300,000 staff and process more than £7tn annually. Its members come from across the payments value chain including payments schemes, banks and issuers, merchant acquirers, PSPs, retailers, TPPs and more. These companies have come together to join our community, collaborate, and speak with a unified voice.
The Payments Association collaborates with its licensees at Payments Association EU and Payments Association Asia to create an interconnected global network of people passionate about making payments work for all.
Media contact
Scott Girling-Heathcote, Account Director, SkyParlour: epa@skyparlour.com / +44 (0)330 043 1315
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