FCA Is Your New Big Brother

Want to apply for a loan and keep your privacy from Government? Forget it! The FCA now wants to track how much alcohol and food you consume each month.

The useless Financial Conduct Authority are back at it again, this time they want lenders to spy on borrowers and for some as of yet unknown reason, report that information back to the Fatherland for analysis.

The FCA requires lenders to perform affordability checks when assessing the applicant's ability to make repayments. They previously asked us to forward information about an applicants incomings and outgoings. We could break this down to just 6 questions (utilities, rent, council tax, food, transport to work, other costs).

Now they want us to go much further, adding an additional 9 questions to our application form. They want us to ask applicants about their alcohol consumption, how many cigs they smoke, their health and beauty habits. We believe this to be totally unreasonable. Our applicants deserve to have privacy from big brother Government.

The FCA has not told us why they need this information or what they intend to do with it. Will they share this information with insurance companies or other financial institutions. In the end, it isn't our job to try and guess what the FCA is up to. They should be telling applicants specifically why they need their information. It's not professional for us to go all conspiracy theory on them, but they need to start explaining themselves to someone about why they need this, but who will stand up to them?

The FCA is the most useless financial institution of all time. They regularly turn a blind eye to the wrongdoing of big banks and fraudsters but clamp down harshly if small lenders make a small mistake on their website. They would be better spending time of severe problems and how to fix them, not making up fake problems that don't need fixing because they then feel like they are worthy of the title 'regulator'.

Lenders are stuck between a rock and a hard place here. If we tell the FCA to get lost, they will fine us for misselling loans. If we comply, borrowers will wonder why on earth we are asking for this information and how we are processing it.