The Financial Conduct Authority has announced that firms will not have to respond to discretionary commission arrangement (DCA) complaints until 4 December at the earliest.
When launching a review into whether motor finance customers have been overcharged because of the past use of DCAs, the FCA paused the eight-week deadline to respond to customer complaints to prevent ‘disorderly, inconsistent and inefficient outcomes for consumers’.
It has now said the pause will last until at least 4 December, with the FCA expected to publish its review into past use of DCAs and suggest next steps in May 2025.
Next steps could involve consulting on a redress scheme or asking firms to start dealing with complaints again as usual.
The FCA said, “We’re working hard to understand how DCAs affected the cost of credit for people borrowing money to buy a vehicle. We’re assessing thousands of records spanning 14 years.
“Firms involved in our review have engaged with us constructively, but many have struggled to supply the data we need within the requested time. Reasons for this include firms not keeping older data, and data being stored on multiple systems, or being spread between lenders and brokers. While we now have the necessary data, the delays mean we will not be able to set out next steps by the end of September 2024 as expected.”
“We intend to set out the findings of our review, and whether we plan to introduce an alternative way of dealing with DCA complaints by end of May 2025.”
