On 5 June 2020, the UK Financial Conduct Authority (the FCA) published a quarterly consultation, CP20/7, proposing to make changes to Chapter 7 of the Consumer Credit Sourcebook (CONC).
The proposed changes to CONC follow the introduction of the UK Government’s ‘Bounce Back Loan Scheme’ (or BBLS) which introduced a new category of exempt credit agreement in Article 60C(4A) of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Regulated Activities) Order 2001 (the RAO) (for more, please see our earlier blog post). But the RAO did not exempt the collecting of debts due under such BBLS loans.
The draft instrument proposes to amend CONC so that:
– CONC 7.12 is extended so it applies to firms who would be consumer credit lending but for the changes made to the RAO for BBLS loans; and
– the expression ‘regulated credit agreement’ is expanded to include an exempt agreement under Article 60C(4A) of the RAO (but not in CONC 7.1.5G, CONC 7.6 and CONC 7.7.4G).
The deadline for responding to the consultation is 5 July 2020.