A Sad Day For Consumers As FCA Drops Scrutiny Of Rip Off Fees, Interactive Investor Says

Interactive investor's Chief Executive, Richard Wilson, comments on the announcement from the FCA that it is dropping its work on investment platform exit fees.

Richard Wilson, said: “We are saddened to see this news snuck out on the afternoon of Friday 13th. Exit fees are a recipe for rip offs and a genuine barrier to consumers seeking better value for money - they should have been banned.

“The FCA rightly points out that the direction of travel in the industry has been away from exit fees, in large part because interactive investor and Hargreaves Lansdown have done away with them. But there are still platforms out there that have grown far too complacent, relying on customer inertia and hefty penalties.

“We scrapped exit fees for Alliance Trust Savings customers ahead of migration onto the interactive investor platform, and we scrapped them again for The Share Centre customers. But that is no reason to turn off the heat - quite the opposite. Scrutiny on exit fees needs to be extended to life companies, asset and wealth managers, life insurers and beyond. We are completely bewildered by the FCA’s announcement and today is a sad day for consumers.”