Santander UK, Britain’s fifth-biggest excessive road financial institution, is cancelling its membership of a key lending requirements physique due to the duplication of regulatory requirements to which the trade is required to stick.
Sky Information has learnt that the Spanish-owned financial institution served discover final week of its intention to stop the Lending Requirements Board, citing the institution of the Metropolis watchdog’s Client Responsibility and the approaching implementation of recent fraud reimbursement guidelines overseen by the Cost Techniques Regulator.
In its letter to the LSB, Santander UK mentioned the brand new regulatory frameworks would “supersede the prevailing voluntary trade requirements which are set out within the present LSB codes”.
“This inevitably results in duplicative regulation and may create confusion amongst employees and prospects about which requirements apply.”
The financial institution added that withdrawing from the LSB would “imply extra certainty and confidence over the regulatory panorama. Decreasing duplicated effort, thereby enabling us to pay attention sources on different vital buyer and regulatory priorities”.
Various different main banks are additionally understood to be contemplating following Santander UK’s choice to terminate their involvement with the LSB, based on trade sources.
The LSB is a self-regulatory physique whose origins started within the Banking Code Requirements Board designed in 1992 by the British Bankers’ Affiliation and different commerce associations.
The monetary disaster which erupted 15 years later and uncovered a litany of failings within the trade’s conduct, additionally paving the best way for the creation of the Banking Requirements Board (BSB).
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Final 12 months, The Instances reported that the BSB had been closed after main lenders declined to proceed funding it.
The BSB’s members had included Santander UK alongside Barclays and NatWest Group, amongst others.
Anna Roughley, the LSB’s head of perception mentioned: “Registration with the Lending Requirements Board permits monetary providers corporations to ship a transparent sign that they’re dedicated to attaining the suitable buyer outcomes the place there are heightened dangers to prospects or an absence of statutory regulation.
“We work intently with regulators and our registered corporations to drive wanted enhancements in buyer outcomes, and to make sure our Requirements and Codes add worth to the UK’s wider regulatory surroundings.”
Santander UK’s letter to the LSB insisted that its withdrawal “on no account implies any intention to cut back the requirements of client safety we offer – certainly, fairly the other”.
A Santander UK spokesman declined to touch upon the letter.
