Industry Insights

The Sheriff Appeal Court (SAC) recently considered whether a hirer under a hire purchase agreement was entitled to rely upon his rejection of a motor vehicle when he had continued to use the vehicle after rejecting it. THE BACKGROUND Black Horse supplied Mr King with a motor vehicle under a hire purchase agreement in June 2019. In October 2020, Mr …

Many readers will be aware that a Bank arrestment is a commonly used enforcement tool in Scotland post the granting of a Decree (Judgement) for payment. It allows a creditor to secure any funds (over and above the statutory protected minimum balance) in a debtor or customer’s bank account and can be a valuable recovery option if the timing is …

You may recall the claims management regulator was a unit of the Ministry of Justice and it regulated companies providing claims management services to England and Wales. Its regulatory responsibilities – which lie within the FCA Handbook under Conduct of Business sourcebook – passed over to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) on 1 April 2019, and this was recently tested …

There is no doubt that Consumer Duty has been our primary focus for over a year now, and you will have heard about the activities, events, and engagements we are carrying out to support our members with the Duty. However, I want to move away from this for now and update our members on other key regulatory and legislative matters …

I recently received a notification on social media that I had passed my second anniversary as Chief Executive of the Consumer Credit Trade Association. It came as a little bit of a surprise as the time just seems to have flown by. Looking back, when I took over from Greg Stevens, it was important that we continued his work of …

As we enter 2023, there has been a discernible shift in the conversation around the UK’s cost-of-living crisis. Increasingly, the focus is on a subject we know all too well: household debt. From debt advice charity StepChange warning it will take years for Christmas borrowing to be repaid, to NatWest announcing it will extend the amount of time customers have …

Customers with existing credit (whether loans, credit cards or hire purchase deals) are frequently targeted with tempting promotions for 0% introductory deals or personal loans with lower APRs than they currently pay. Debt consolidation solutions can be hugely beneficial to some customers who struggle with their monthly debt repayments, a situation likely to worsen if the pressures on the cost-of-living …

Consumers in the UK are facing increasing financial pressure amidst the rising cost of living. Inflation hit 10.1% in the twelve months to January 2022, whilst the Bank of England raising base rates to 4.0% has significantly increased the cost of borrowing money. Unsurprisingly, people are feeling the impact, with our latest Consumer Pulse study showing three quarters of UK …

The price and value of regulated financial services products has long been in the FCA’s spotlight. The Consumer Duty is strengthening the FCA’s focus in this area. While the FCA already has powers to regulate certain aspects of pricing for financial products and services, its primary focus has been around consumer protection and market integrity. With its concurrent competition objective …

Vulnerability Registration Service (VRS) produced our Vulnerable Customer Exclusion report at the end of last year and it showed some frightening but not surprising statistics. We know from the FCA that around a quarter of the population consider themselves to be vulnerable and our report underlined that, but 10% of people deem themselves to be at risk of homelessness, eviction …

Illegal money lending has a devastating, traumatic and long-lasting impact on victims, families and wider communities. This is driven by the predatory behaviour of loan sharks, which involves significant levels of harassment, intimidation and violence. Ruthless loan sharks exploit people in desperate need of quick cash. They charge extortionate rates of interest and trap their victims in a cycle of …

Following Boris Johnson’s somewhat forced resignation in July, a new leadership contest for the Conservative party took place over the summer. Due to the current political system and the ways in which leaders are elected, this inevitably meant a change of Prime Minster and a new Government. Liz Truss MP, winner of the leadership contest became Prime Minister shortly after. …