Brokers urge lenders to pre-empt FSA

Steve Wander, partner at Best Advice Financial Planning, said there had been no improvement in the length of some KFIs and said lenders must now take charge.

His comments also come as the FSA starts its consumer campaign to make the public aware of the need to get a KFI before getting a mortgage.

Wander said: “It’s all well and good the FSA launching this consumer campaign but this does not change the fact KFIs are still too long and confusing. Changing this should be the FSA’s main focus. But there is no sign of this happening.

“So it is up to the lenders to make a change to make the KFIs more user-friendly.”

Brokers have continued to show support for Mortgage Introducer’s ‘Get The Facts Straight’ campaign, which aims to get a standardised KFI introduced.

Broker Paul Elliot said he supported the campaign wholeheartedly, while broker firm Campbell and Campbell said the longest KFI it had handed to clients since ‘Mortgage Day’ was from the Halifax at 11 pages.

Halifax spokesman Paul Fincham, said the lender could not confirm that any immediate changes would be made.

He commented: “Where we can make improvements, we will do so. When it comes to customer interest, we clearly take the lead on our own business.

“We have additional, voluntary pages to our KFIs which lay out the capital, interest and outstanding payments a customer would have to make.”