FSA consults on new rules for packaged accounts
Following an investigation, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) has proposed a series of checks to ensure that only individuals who qualify for the included insurance cover will be offered packaged accounts.
According to research by MoneySupermarket.com, forty percent of Britons have these fee-based accounts, which offer additional benefits to customers, such as travel insurance, mobile phone cover, free currency exchange and breakdown recovery.
However, the FSA found that banks and building societies have been mis-selling these products to people who are not eligible to take advantage of the extras offered, or who already have similar cover in place. Furthermore, according to MoneySupermarket.com, only 52 percent of individuals with packaged accounts used the benefits and 13 percent didn’t understand the additional features available.
With monthly fees of up to £20, savers are wasting millions of pounds on services they don’t need and might not even be eligible to use. Therefore, the FSA wants to ensure that packaged accounts are “only being sold to customers who have actively decided it is the right product for them”.
Interested parties have until 27th January 2012 to comment on the proposals.
