The Financial Services Authority ("FSA") has proposed new rules to regulate the sale of insurance policies as part of packaged bank accounts.  The rules will require more rigorous customer eligibility checks before selling packaged bank accounts and could potentially make the sale of these accounts more difficult.  Firms which sell insurance as part of a packaged bank account will be affected by the rules, which may also be of interest to insurers and retail intermediary firms selling general insurance products. 

For a full report on the new rules for packaged bank accounts, please click here.

In addition, FSA and the Office of Fair Trading ("OFT") have published a joint consultation on proposed guidance to firms in relation to payment protection products.  The consultation comes in the light of recent developments on payment protection insurance (PPI), with some firms developing new forms of protection that aim to meet similar consumer needs to PPI, and emerging concerns about these new products and practices.  The aim is to prevent the problems associated with PPI recurring in a new generation of products.

For a full report on the guidance consultation on payment protection products, please click here.

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The original publication date for this article was 01/11/2011.