Despite the industry regulator, the Financial Services Authority stating that the split caps misconduct case is their biggest ever, with 60 people working on it, they have hit a stumbling block. As we previously reported, the Financial Services Authority is in discussions with the 21 providers of split caps and is trying to get them to agree to its compensation suggestions. There has also been talk in the industry press that the FSA is threatening to freeze the bank accounts of those providers not agreeing to compensation.
Our View
For the FSA to say that the split caps problem is their biggest case ever, it really must be serious. They must also be hitting a number of brick walls on the way from providers. If not, this would have been sorted out long ago.
Our view is that the debacle cannot be as clear-cut as we had all imagined and blame has most definitely not been laid at designated doors. Could there be more to this than we had thought?