Document Type

Article

Disciplines

Insurance Law

Abstract

The misselling of Payment Protection Insurance (“PPI”) is a longstanding problem in the UK. The Treating Customers Fairly (“TCF”) initiative was introduced to tackle this problem but, despite its sophisticated inception, its effectiveness has been limited. This Article canvasses the main features of TCF as a management-based approach to regulation and highlights its initial appeal. Against this backdrop, it draws on the recent UK experience with recurring instances of PPI misselling to offer an account of the principal causes of its shortcomings in the retail financial sector. It argues that the perceived failure of this regulatory approach may be attributed to the following three factors: (i) the rulification of TCF; (ii) several shortcomings of the existing data resource management; and (iii) the absence of a system of credible deterrence to support the Financial Conduct Authority’s attempts to be proactive and to inflict cultural change at regulated firm level. The Article concludes with a summary of key lessons that may be drawn from the UK experience.

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Insurance Law Commons

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