What right do The Compliance Guys have writing a blog on here? They help authorise businesses for regulated FCA activity! As this is our first blog, I’m going to just explain a little about what we do and our values.
What does The Compliance Group do?
Our core customer base is the automotive industry, simply because both Nick McDonald and I (Jon Rix) come from an automotive and finance background. Unlike many other consumer finance automotive compliance companies we don’t deal with the car supermarkets and franchise dealers. This is mainly down to us noticing that the small, medium independent dealers get largely overlooked, cast aside, ignored or overcharged.
But why do a lot of people feel the independent used car dealer is ‘Arthur Daily’? Don’t get me wrong there are some, but on the whole they’re a friendly bunch who just want to sell cars and then use the finance to help sell more cars.
Here’s the problem. As these guys mainly ‘just sell cars’, FCA regulation and reporting is not their strong point and being directly authorised comes with responsibility. Unlike franchise dealerships or car supermarkets, the independents don’t have business managers to facilitate the finance process so like most businesses they need help.
That’s where we come in.
Why do we do our work?
In the past we’ve seen companies charging huge fees for these dealers to get them regulated and then make the dealers complete processes and procedures that are simply not required for an independent dealer who isn’t selling general insurance. These companies often go on the offensive, scaring them into signing up for things that are completely irrelevant to their business. Is this in the spirit of the FCA, is this Treating Customers Fairly?
The audacity is shocking. For some poor ‘Fred in the shed’ who would like to sell three more cars a month by now having a finance facility.
At The Compliance Guys we’re changing the landscape. We talk to our retailers in easy, palatable language, we give them the advice and support they need, then for a small monthly fee we take care of their FCA reporting and provide ongoing support to ensure that the ever-evolving FCA regulations are being met. We really do listen to our dealers and guarantee that they get what they need.
What’s going on in the industry?
There’s far too much over-regulation for these kinds of retailers. “Over-regulation, surely it has to be this way, everything must be done by the book?” I hear you say!
Why make a dealer jump through hoops and put in processes that they’re simply not required to do?
This will only make the customer journey more convoluted and complex, with demands and needs and initial disclosure documents being sent out when, if they don’t provide general insurance services, it’s not required. What’s the point of that?
FCA Authorisation has to be sorted, right?
Another thing that we get, is application requests for FCA Authorisation, when FCA authorisation isn’t actually required.
It’s actually more common than you think. Normally these requests sit outside the automotive industry. Nonetheless, we always listen, investigate, research and pick up the phone to speak directly to the FCA if required. This ensures we provide our clients with the best route for their business. We’ve made great business partners with people we’ve never actually done FCA authorisations for. This is because they can hardly believe that we refused to take their money and run!
Lots of these FCA Authorisations requests are for Full Authorisation in areas that have a grey area between regulated and unregulated markets. This is an extremely big job with a considerable amount of documentation. This is something that we need to put together for the client and with that comes a bigger cost. We would love to do the work but it’s just not right thing to do!
In future blogs we will talk about some of the other areas of compliance we cover. This will include some business to business stuff which we think more people should know about. But for now, we will leave you with our simple motto for compliance that we live by every day: #CaringNotScaring
To find out more about The Compliance Group, visit their website. Otherwise let us know if you would like to see something written about in our blog, leave us a comment!