Latest Banking
- The Financial Conduct Authority(FCA) requesting further information about overdraft pricing from firms
- Lloyd's Banking Group announces new ambition to accelerate working with customers, government and the market to help reduce the carbon emissions it finances by more than 50% by 2030
- Which? says banks are refusing to reimburse fraud victims-Joe Bloemendaal of Mitek comments
- EBA publishes amendment to its 2018 guidelines on fraud reporting under the revised Payment Services Directive(PSD2)
- PIMFA welcomes the International Regulatory Strategy Group(IRSG) report on ‘The Architecture for Regulating Finance after Brexit: Phase II’
- Starling Bank voted as Britain’s Best Bank 2019 in a poll run by CompareBanks.co.uk
- Juniper Research new study assesses that that global number of roaming subscribers will reach 1.1 billion by 2024 expired
- Open banking platform Tink and BNP Paribas have announced an extension of their partnership in Europe expired
- Alpha Terminal appoints Hall as Head of Support at London Office expired
- Magnus Financial Group earns a spot in the 2019 RIA Channel Top 100 Wealth Managers Ranking expired
- PZU in cooperation with Goldman Sachs Asset Management launches two new passive sub-funds expired
- Signature Private Finance successfully complete £16.8m management buyout expired
28th January 2020
The Financial Conduct Authority(FCA) requesting further information about overdraft pricing from firms
Trend
The Financial Conduct Authority(FCA) is requesting further information about overdraft pricing from firms.
Over the past few days there has been significant comment about many headline overdraft rates, and in particular that major banks have aligned overdraft rates around 40%.
The FCA study into the overdraft market concluded that it was dysfunctional. In particular, consumers found it very difficult to understand what charges they were paying and charges for unarranged overdrafts were very high, regularly 10 times the cost of a payday loan. These carges fell heavily on consumers who are vulnerable.
THe FCA says that its reforms of the market have ended high unarranged charges, saving typical borrowers up to £55 per month on an unarranged overdraft of £100 over 7 days.
Confusing fees and charges have been banned, and the cost of overdrafts has been made more transparent. For many occasional borrowers, the removal of fees means they will pay less even though their headline rate of borrowing may increase.
We have now seen the major banks and building societies release their new rates–with most setting very similar prices.
The FCA has been in regular contact with the major banks and has written to ask them to provide evidence of how they have arrived at their pricing decisions.
The FCA are also being clear that it expect firms to take positive steps to help customers who may be worse off or in financial difficulties as a result of these changes. It has asked to see their plans for how they are dealing with the most affected customers.
The FCA expects banks to take steps to support them, for example firms could reduce or waive interest, offer a continuation of overdraft borrowing at current rate of interest, or agree a repayment programme–including a personal loan.
Customers who are worried about the impact of any changes should contact their provider.
The FCA will be keeping a close eye on the market and will act should it see continued harm.
