Hoban says saving not CPMA role
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Treasury financial secretary Mark Hoban says the Consumer Protection and Markets Authority should not be given an objective of increasing saving and protection levels.
Money Marketing recently launched a campaign, Pave The Way To Save, calling on the new regulator to have a greater focus on encouraging individuals to save and protect themselves and their families, including a specific statutory objective to have regard for increasing savings rates and levels of protection.
Responding to a question from Money Marketing at a fringe event at the Conservative conference in Birmingham this week, Hoban said giving the CPMA such an objective would set it up to fail.
He said: “We do want people to save more but I think to give the CPMA a statutory objective to increase savings risks setting it up to fail. There are some things that the CPMA can do such as promote a good regulatory environment.
“The Consumer Financial Education Body will be able to help promote awareness of savings and provide advice and guidance but actually the decision on how much you save is really down to individuals.
“So to give the CPMA that objective explicitly would set it up to fail. But I think that there are a range of other triggers that the Government can pull which would improve the likelihood of people saving more.”
Hoban reiterated the Government’s plans to launch a consultation on simplified products later this year. He said consumers need straightforward products which “do what they say on the tin” and enable providers to compete on price and performance.
He said: “I do not think price caps necessarily work but what I do want to see is us working with the industry to produce a suite of products that will help savers and ensure choice and competition in the marketplace keeps costs low, with a real focus on performance.”
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Readers' comments (1)
Julian Stevens | 12 Oct 2010 2:13 pm
If not directly, then the CPMA certainly should, in my opinion, do whatever it can to help advisers promote the benefits of savings and protection, if only by stating to the world that the purpose of good regulation is to support the provision of financial planning advice just as much as it is to deter bad advice. That's called balance and, as I need hardly point out, is something in which the current regulatory framework is sorely lacking on many fronts. (Money Made Clear is a notable exception).
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