Regulation

Given the Financial Ombudsman Service's (FOS) desire to see larger caseload contributors paying a greater share of the costs, do you think this heralds a focus on smaller companies well being from regulators?

The debate between insurers and their ‘right' to assess risk against public policy concerns about unethical discrimination has come into sharp focus again with the European Court of Justice's (ECJ) ruling on gender discrimination.

The protection industry may have to change the way it works if it is to maximise the potential of the simple products initiative, the project's leader has said.

The Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) spent nearly £400m on management expenses in the 2010/11 year as it took in nearly £1bn in levies and paid out over £535m in compensation.

Advisers have given the Treasury's simple products initiative a tentative thumbs up while recognising that the financial services industry is overly complicated.

Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) redress totals have reached a new peak after payments rocketed by more than £100m in just one month.

The Financial Services Consumer Panel has called for the new Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to be given full responsibility for the regulation of retail financial services, including consumer credit.

Protection complaints continued to rise during the year and have already breached last year's totals in some product areas.

With white papers due this year on long-term care (Dilnot Review), sickness absence and also the Treasury's work on simple products, how much explicit help (not just macro changes to benefits and the NHS) would you want the government to give the industry?...

The ten worst offending payment protection insurance (PPI) mis-selling firms could face costs of over £55m to enable regulators to deal with the problem.