No Qualifications!!!!

Pot calling the kettle black again. What qualifications have the FSA staff got? In the majority of cases, none at all. Another wooden spoon awarded to the FSA.

Posted by: Incompetent Regulators Awards Team

OK I am very confused now

With mortgage broker firms, whilst it is only necessary under the rules to have ONE person who is qualified, how on EARTH did the FSA manage to make him an approved person in 2005 without evidence that he WAS qualified? Either he manufactured false qualifications or someone at the FSA cocked up. Has the member of staff at the FSA moved on or are they still there? Has the FSA staff member been disciplined/their bonus cancelled? What lessons have the FSA and the staff who failed to spot this at the application for approval stage learnt from this? If a client complains, why should the FSCS (and hence other firms) be expected to pick up the bill for upheld complainst for this firm, when the error was on the part opf the FSA approving someone who should not have been approved. This should come from the FSA's bonus pot before payemnt of bonuses and NOT from the FSCS first....

Posted by: Phil Castle

Incompetent Regulators Awards Team

Stupid comment from the above about the regulators qualifications. How could someone become directly regulated in 2005, trade through the good years, get hit with only a £5000 fine. Forget being banned, he should never have been able to trade anyway. My questions Did he have indemnity insurance? Did he pay income tax? Is he going to be charged with fraud for obviously falisfying his application form? Who helped him? Who were the compliance professionals? What about anti-money laundering? I want 200 comments quickly, to raise awareness of this case. If the fine were more realistic to the tune of £100000's it would be on the BBC. The then head of new authorisations needs to be sacked. What's the point of playing by the rules if fraud pays?

Posted by: A bolton Broker

Four years of approval with no qualifications?

The FSA need to answer some very serious questions as to how this person was approved in the first place and why it took 4 years to spot the mistake. I agree this is one the press should be taking up.

Posted by: Philip Bell

Heads should roll

This is outrageous and would never had happened if the FSA were doing their job properly in taking the necessary due dilligence when authorising the man. Somebody needs to be found accountable at the FSA for allowing this to happen.

Posted by: Cheltenham IFA

Xmas Party Fund

This bandit was unauthorised so how can the FSA fine him? Surely this is a criminal matter and not an excuse to top the social fund up. Did the lenders not check his authorisation to set up an agency? Well done for catching him but we are accountable for every solitary movement yet he escapes jail for fraud and obtaining money by deception unless there is a separate case.Leniency on the fine? He wasn't authorised !! Absolutely digusted!

Posted by: Peter Taylor

Unqualified Bolton Mortgage Broker

This beggars belief. The man and woman in the street will be entitled to wonder whether the protection allegedly offered offered by FSA authorisation, is worth the paper it is written on.

Posted by: Edinburgh Broker

Double Standards

'he put his customers at risk of unsuitable advice'? He presumably did not have the processes and controls to spot and stop a fraud being committed? So what procedures and controls have the FSA got to stop this happening? How did he obtain his CCL? Why was he only fined £5k, when a broker last year was fined £10k for submitting self-cert cases and getting clients to sign to confirm they could afford the payments. Was it only £5k because the FSA were embarrassed about their own failings? In which case, us advisers should demand compensation. This guy has damaged our good name, and could've risked the public's faith in the industry, all because the FSA wanted to boost their authorisation numbers in 2005!!

Posted by: Dermot Brannigan