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Mortgage brokers banned after probe
The Financial Services Auth-ority has banned two South Yorkshire mortgage brokers following investigations into their operations.
The FSA banned Darrell Mark Eaden from Barnsley from being a senior manager for exposing customers to the risk of receiving unsuitable advice by failing to monitor his pension transfer specialist effectively.
The authority has also announced bans on Doncaster mortgage broker Ian James, his wife Nicola and their company, Orchard House Mortgages.
Mark Eaden ran a business called Liberty Financial Consultants, which specialised in mortgages and investments and has now ceased trading.
The FSA found that between May 2004 and March 2005 Mr Eaden failed to "exercise due skill, care and diligence in managing the business of Liberty."
The authority says he didn't maintain an appropriate level of understanding of pension transfers and adequately supervise and monitor the firm's pension transfer specialist.
He didn't take reasonable steps to ensure that Liberty's pension transfer business was organised so that it could be controlled effectively and failed to take reasonable steps to ensure Liberty's pension transfer business complied with the relevant requirements and standards of the regulatory system.
FSA head of retail enforcement Jonathan Phelan, said: "Firms must have in place and operate effective systems to ensure suitable advice is given to customers – this is a key part of treating customers fairly.
"Mr Eaden was responsible for ensuring that Liberty's pension transfer specialist was effectively monitored, but he fell a long way short of achieving this. As a consequence he has been banned from being a senior manager."
"Our action should leave firms in no doubt that the FSA places great emphasis on the importance of adequate systems and controls, and individuals responsible for those systems and controls will be held accountable if they are not adequate."
In the case of Doncaster-based Orchard House Mortgages, the FSA found that Mr and Mrs James obtained a bank loan of just over 9,000, including interest, by submitting two false payslips with fake salaries and employment histories.
Mr James was the sole director and approved person of Scawthorpe-based mortgage broker Orchard House and his wife was company secretary.
Jonathan Phelan, head of retail enforcement at the FSA, said: "Mr James had overall responsibility for ensuring that Orchard House conducted its business with integrity. He showed a lack of honesty and integrity in relation to his own personal financial dealings.
"Given our concerns about brokers' use of false payslips on customers' mortgage applications, we applied the same standards to him and we concluded that he could not be trusted to occupy any position in relation to customers' mortgage applications."
Mr James, his wife and his company can no longer carry out any work regulated by the FSA.
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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