Most members have received a Pawnbroking Survey from the FCA. The NPA have put together help and guidance and this is available on the NPA website for members, trade members including software providers. The information gathering is a one off survey to aid FCA’s understanding of our market.
The 4th Money Laundering Directive (Money Laundering Regulations MLR 2017 (SI 2017/692) came into effect on 26th June. The FCA have advised NPA that they are not producing general guidance but suggest members have a look at their Finalised Guidance FG17/5. This is under FCA in the NPA resources or at
https://www.fca.org.uk/publication/finalised-guidance/fg17-06.pdf
The key points are;
-All firms must apply a risk sensitive approach to PEPs
-You should only consider someone to be a domestic PEP if they hold ‘truly prominent positions and not local government’.
A list of categories of people now considered PEPs is shown under s2.16 of the guidance document.
To check whether someone is a UK PEP firms should ‘make use of information available to them’ such as government/parliament websites and public registers such as the Companies House Register of Companies and Persons of Significant Control and the electoral commission. You are not however required to use a commercial database. Where a PEP is identified the staff member is required to have senior management approval to continue that business relationship.
HMRC have thanked NPA for the advice it has passed on to members regarding the new ML Regulation and is pleased we were quick off the mark in helping them to inform, particularly, our MSB members, which is by the way about 70% of all NPA members.
The FCA have advised NPA that the results of the High Cost Credit consultation will be issued at the end of July, and bares no relation to the statements made by Quick loans in the Daily Telegraph where it was stated that the price cap would rise significantly. The results will be open for final consultation primarily by Trade Associations from August and any implementation by the FCA will commence in 2018
Preparations continue regarding the General Data Protection Regulation (May 2018) and our Summer magazine gave guidance on making sure your current DP policy is in a ‘good place’. FCA have told NPA that they are still consulting with ICO (Information Commissioners Office) to ensure that sensitive information regarding customer data and contracts is treated differently to, for example, marketing data, which the customers may be entitled to have erased.
Sale and Buy Backs- The Bills of Sale Act will be replaced with a Goods Mortgage Act which will clarify regulation around for example logbook loans and buy backs. No further detail is known at this stage.
The FCA has published its findings on a thematic review of staff incentives. They have concluded that many firms incentives practice are high risk with inadequate controls. https://www.fca.org.uk/publication/consultation/cp17-20.pdf The problems they found were- high risk financial incentives which encouraged high pressure sales, whereby the boss monitoring rewards were dependant on the staff they were monitoring for their own reward. They are now proposing new rules in CONC (2.11.4) to ensure good outcomes for customers. Their recommendations including citing good practice in their handbook are open for consultation until 4th October.