On 11 January 2024, the Financial Conduct Authority announced that it was undertaking a review of historic motor finance commission arrangements and they expect to announce their findings on 24 September 2024. As a consequence of this, the Financial Conduct Authority have introduced temporary complaint-handling rules that may impact how we handle complaints about motor finance, where a discretionary commission arrangement was in place.
The temporary rules will apply to a complaint about a regulated credit agreement (e.g. hire purchase or PCP) that was taken out before 28 January 2021 to finance a car and where there was a discretionary commission arrangement which allowed a broker or dealer to adjust the interest rate offered. The temporary rules mean that we have a longer time to respond to your complaint where it was received after 17 November 2023 and in some cases the final response might not be issued until 20 November 2024. Your time to complain to the Financial Ombudsman from the date we issue our final response has been extended from 6 months to 15 months. Further information can be found on the FCA’s website, which explains the reason for these changes – https://www.fca.org.uk/consumers/car-finance-complaints
We will write to acknowledge receipt of your complaint within 5 working days and we will explain if we think the changes impact you.