Banks are falling behind on the guidelines, a director has suggested.
The City regulator's new Treating Customers Fairly (TCF) guidelines are still not being followed by banks, one of its directors has suggested.
Sarah Wilson, TCF director for the Financial Services Authority (FSA), said that financial firms have a "long way to go" before adopting the scheme's precepts, FT Advisor reports. This is despite the regulator's own pre-stated deadline for banks being able to demonstrate that they are following TCF falling in December.
TCF was introduced by the FSA in order to give consumers a better deal from the financial services industry. Among its precepts is that customers can be "confident" that fairness is in banks' "corporate culture" and that they are provided with "clear information" on products both before and after they purchase them.
In a speech to the British Bankers' Association's TCF conference, Ms Wilson commented:"Our aim has been to deliver a step change in the industry, so that consumers would be more likely to receive consistently fair treatment. The work required as a result, by individual firms has varied enormously - in scale and complexity."
She added: "Occasionally we find that a bank has really not grasped what is required and has simply assumed that all is well."
