Has regulation improved under the FCA?

The majority of brokers believe that regulation has improved or stayed the same since the introduction of the FCA in April 2013, according to an exclusive survey from Insurance Times.

The news comes ahead of the first Insurance Times Knowledge Live event where brokers will gather in London on Wednesday to discuss regulation and whether it has helped or hindered brokers in the UK.

Almost one-third (31%) of brokers who responded to the survey said that regulation had improved since the new regulator took over, while only 16% said they felt regulation had got worse (see chart below).

Brokers seemed pleased that the FCA was taking time to understand how brokers’ businesses worked in the real world.

One respondent to the survey said: “They appear to want to better understand how brokers operate. From the limited contact we have had so far I feel that we have a stronger relationship than with the FSA.”

However, not everyone agreed that regulation had improved since the introduction of the FCA.

One respondent described the FCA as “disruptive, unhelpful and time consuming” and said “the vast majority of [compliance issues] appear to be unnecessary and inapplicable to our trading platform”.