CML news & views

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has reiterated its plans to make a series of targeted visits to mortgage advisers to scrutinise their systems and controls against mortgage fraud.

The FSA’s financial crime and intelligence division’s director, Philip Robinson, said the measures showed how serious he was in tackling fraud. But the FSA also understood that times were difficult for the industry and that its actions “did not imply any significant additional burdens for those firms who are already fulfilling their regulatory obligations.”

Addressing an international symposium on economic crime earlier this month, Mr Robinson said a host of different professionals in the industry – lenders, advisers, solicitors, surveyors, property developers and estate agents – had their own measures to tackle fraud. “But the challenge is that each party has a limited view of the situation,” said Mr Robinson.

To overcome this, the FSA was working to strengthen its relationships with other supervisory and regulatory agencies, including police forces across the country. 

As part of this process, the FSA and CML had launched an “information from lenders” project to make effective use of the intelligence they have on the brokers they deal with. 

“We have an effective relationship with the lenders which has allowed us to work with them to upgrade the project, and answer some concerns that lenders had about reporting in the past,” said Mr Robinson. “This work is complemented by the CML’s measure to improve intra-industry intelligence sharing.”

He continued: “We do have an opportunity to remove the stigma, menace and market distortion caused by the dishonest few across the mortgage sector. Working together with industry and law enforcement, I believe that we have already had, and will continue to have, some significant successes.”