TCF ‘needs to be fully embraced’ by the industry

Supporting Mortgage Introducer’s ‘Countdown to TCF’ campaign, Sarah Wilson, director of TCF at the FSA, urged firms to consider the initiative as a culture they should adopt into everyday business practice.

Wilson said: “Some people have termed TCF to be paper and record-keeping and while this is important, it is more about adopting the practice in a cultural way. We are keen to get those in the industry into a place where they ask questions throughout the entire process of mortgage advice and sales.

“There should be constant enquiry when dealing with consumers, and this needs to be the culture of the firm. One of the signs of success in TCF is that firms should be constantly working at developing a better standard of practice when focusing on the consumer.”

Wilson added that the regulator had spent the last year measuring the active process of firms in changing their culture, while going forward it would be monitoring whether firms actively treated their customers fairly.

Robert Sinclair, director of the Association of Finance Brokers, commented: “We need the industry to come to the fore to produce data that can be used to underpin what is going on. It is about tracking progress and is not about customer satisfaction or assuming that ‘they don’t know any better’.”

Answer ten questions to win Amazon vouchers!

get the daily news delivered to your inbox
find the latest industry jobs