4 out of 5 financial websites fail compliance test

Posted in 'Personal Finance' by Barry Stamp

17 January 2012

Over 80% of UK websites operated by financial institutions, such as banks and credit card companies, and by credit intermediaries, such as comparison websites, were found to fall short of the law.

In a ‘Sweeps’ exercise, 38 of 47 websites examined contained irregularities of some sort, mostly relating to credit advertising failing to be up to scratch, or to the credit offers themselves failing to provide the full costs.

A co-ordinated EU-wide Sweeps audit was carried out in September 2011 by the regulatory authorities in each of the 27 EU member states, and also in Iceland and Norway, to check that the EU credit law that has been put into place to protect consumers is being complied with.

In the UK, each of the 38 websites that have failed the test will now face enforcement action that could result in warnings, fines or, potentially, even closure of the websites.

Comparison websites make it much easier for consumers to compare the true cost of credit, although most will be picking up information relating to credit deals directly from the website of the financial institution, which means that errors may be cascading throughout several financial websites.

At checkmyfile we continually monitor the websites of financial institutions to make sure that we are using the most up-to-date details within our own comparison tables, but the weak link is of course that the website of the financial institution may omit important aspects of the deal or may not comply properly with credit advertising law.

At checkmyfile we also use your credit score to help you to select only those lenders who are likely to say yes to your applications. You can either do this very accurately by using the credit scores generated from a checkmyfile Multi Agency credit report , or you can use our free Free Find a Credit Card service which uses the same information that is usually collected from you on credit application forms.

Using your credit report is the most accurate way to do this and you can trial our subscription service free for 30 days and if you don’t cancel, the cost is an affordable £9.99 per month.

To see more about the Sweeps audit, click here .