FSA fines mortgage broker £250,000 for 'repeated' fraud

The FSA today handed out the second largest fine for an intermediary to a London-based mortgage for repeated mortgage fraud and deliberately misleading the regulator.

Selvavinayakam Vigneswaran, the sole director of Future Finance Limited, a mortgage brokerage based in Kingsbury, North West London, was banned and fined £250,000.

Authorised in October 2004, Vigneswaran was the only approved person at the firm and was responsible for the day-to-day running of the business and ensuring it complied with FSA standards.

In October 2007, the FSA received a tip-off from a lender that Vigneswaran had been removed from its panel of preferred intermediaries, as it strongly suspected him of submitting applications to another lender that contained erroneous information.

When the FSA spoke to the second lender and reviewed a number of applications, it said it soon became clear that there was cause for serious concern.

During its investigation, the FSA uncovered a catalogue of misdemeanours.

These showed that Vigneswaran had:

• submitted three mortgage applications in his parents' names containing false information about their income and employment
• commissioned the creation of, then submitted, false payslips for his parents
• submitted four applications in his own name that contained false information about his own earnings
• regularly submitted falsified information to lenders on behalf of his clients.

It also transpired that, having been struck off the lenders panel, Vigneswaran then fraudulently used his father's identity to set up a new firm, Cherry Finance Ltd.

When the FSA spoke to Vigneswaran's father, who is retired, does not speak English, and whose experience of financial services extended to occasional administrative support at Futture, he was not even aware that a company had been set up in his name.

Of the £250,000 fine, £100,000 specifically relates to Vigneswaran misleading the FSA.

In addition, in an unrelated case, the FSA has today cancelled the permissions of mortgage broker Stephen Selby, of Selby Associates in Ellesmere Port, for withholding client files ahead of an FSA review.