With Mortgage Introducer’s ‘Get the Facts Straight’ campaign, which aims to get a standardised KFI introduced, gaining support by the day, brokers have informed MI – News they are being forced to use highlighter pens on the KFIs to pinpoint the most relevant information on the document for their clients.
Brokers say this is the only way they can think of to make the documents more assessable and user-friendly for customers to compare products.
London-based sole broker Roy New said: “I have to keep a highlighter pen handy when giving clients the KFIs. They would not understand the documents if I did not break down the information for them.
I doubt the FSA will even recompense me for these pens. It is eating up even more time so I’ve had to up my fees to clients.”
New added that highlighting the key details on the KFIs is not just for the sake of the client. He said: “I am also doing this to show the client I am doing my job properly.
“Brokers are here to make things easier for the consumer. If I just gave them the KFI as it is, do you think they would want to come back?”
Danny Lovey, sole trader at Essex-based intermediary firm The Mortgage Practitioner, said: “Roy New must be reading my mind. I’m doing exactly the same thing – as are probably lots of other brokers.
Until the FSA reviews the KFIs and makes them shorter, it’s just common sense to use a highlighter. How else will consumers understand it? It’s just ridiculous that we have to resort to this – and it just shows that the current KFIs aren’t doing what they should be doing.”
Robin Gordon-Walker, spokesman at the FSA, declined to comment about the highlighter pens but said: “The rules set out what the KFIs must contain. The onus is on the people that are producing the KFIs to put in all of this information.”
