Fulton Vehicle Leasing:
Regulated by the FSA
The Financial Services Authority (FSA) is an independent organisation
responsible for regulating financial services in the UK.
Setup by the government, the FSA's aim is to promote efficient, orderly and fair financial markets and help retail financial service consumers get a fair deal. The government is responsible for the overall scope of the FSA's regulatory activities and for its powers. The FSA regulates most financial services markets, exchanges and firms. It sets the standards they must meet and can take action against firms if they fail to meet the required standards.
Fulton are a great believer in regulation of our industry and having been members of the FSA for many years now there are definate consumer benefits to dealing with regulated finance companies such as Fulton.
They have a wide range of rule-making, investigatory and enforcement powers to enable them to meet four statutory objectives summarised as one overall aim: to promote efficient, orderly and fair markets and to help retail consumers achieve a fair deal. They currently regulate over 29,000 firms with a diverse range of sizes and activities. And they publish a single Handbook of rules and guidance for all authorised firms carrying out business in the UK.
In recent years, the Government has increased the scope of their work: since November 2004 they have regulated mortgage business; and since January 2005, general insurance activities.
The FSA is committed to making a decisive shift towards more principles-based regulation, including making the regulatory architecture more principles-based, with greater emphasis on high-level and outcome-focused rules. They recognise in making this shift the industry may wish to create its own guidance to assist firms that want more information on our principles and high-level rules. They also recognise that some firms may feel more comfortable following guidance which they know the FSA has reviewed and confirmed (although they do not expect every piece of industry guidance to be confirmed, nor should such guidance be deemed inferior).
In the past they have made public comments about specific pieces of Industry Guidance. These comments have varied in strength and formality. While they have been happy to provide recognition of this kind, some firms felt the status of such guidance was ambiguous and those producing it felt their process for endorsing it was inconsistent. They have remedied this by formalising how they recognise Industry Guidance and the status this will have in their regulatory regime.
They have created a process for recognising Industry Guidance, which they describe as FSA confirmation. Their final policy approach, including what FSA confirmation means, is detailed in their Policy Statement PS 07/16
These pages provide firms, guidance producers and consumers with all the relevant information they should need about about the production and use of FSA confirmed Industry Guidance.