Named and Shamed

Named and Shamed

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) is to be forced to name and shame the 12 endowment mortgage providers which misused Lautro projections in setting premiums.

Their misuse of the Lautro projections meant that customers were given unrealistically high maturity figures.

The FSA have been forced into the embarrassing climbdown by the Information Commissioner's Office, which has upheld a freedom of information request to name the 12 firms.

It is estimated that several hundred thousand policies could be affected by this ruling.

The FSA had stubbornly refused to name the firms, claiming that it would affect future informal reviews, damage market confidence and infringe the providers' rights. Proving once again that the FSA is an ineffectual body, that does not stand up for the consumer when faced with a conflict of interest.

The FSA conducted an informal mortgage endowment review in 2001 which found that between 1988 and 1994, 12 providers used standard Lautro charges to set premiums without informing consumers that their actual charges were higher. This meant consumers would need to pay higher premiums to meet their expected maturity figures.

The FSA said that the providers had "breached a contractual warranty and/or of material pre-contractual misrepresentation in the sale of endowment mortgages".

The FSA has been of little help to the victims of the endowment scandal. One has to ask, what is the point of the FSA?