The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has published its consolidated policy statement on regulatory fees and levies, which sets out the final FSA fee rates and Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) levies for 2009/10.
The amount the FSA needs to raise from firms this year has risen by 35.8% from last year. How these fee increases apply to different firms depends on a range of factors. The FSA works hard to ensure that fees are allocated as fairly as possible, with the largest fee increases being allocated to the firms that require the most use of the extra supervisory resource.
As a result of the detailed review of the cost allocation of the 2009/10 budget, feedback from its consultation and cost savings made by the FSA, there have been changes to some of the fee rates proposed in Februarys consultation paper. The result is that that some firms will see their proposed percentage fee increase drop and others will experience a higher fee increase than originally proposed.
Although individual firms fees will vary widely according to a firms size, activities and individual circumstances, some groups of firms (fee blocks) will be subject to lower overall fees than those initially proposed in February. For example, the total amount of fees assigned to mortgage advisers had been proposed to rise by 21.2% compared to last year but the increase will now be 2.7%. Likewise, the total fees payable by one of the financial adviser fee blocks will increase by 4.8% compared to the 15% increase proposed.
Conversely, some firms will see higher rates than those originally proposed. These firms include deposit takers, which will see the total fees assigned to them increase by 109.4% from last year compared to the 94.9% rise proposed, and firms dealing as principal where the increase across these firms will now be 80.1% rather than the 69.1% increase set out in Februarys consultation paper.
It is important to highlight that minimum FSA fees (the basic fee which all firms are required to pay) will be frozen at 2008/09 levels as proposed in Februarys consultation paper. In addition, once the financial penalty rebate is applied, approximately 10,000 small firms will actually experience a fee reduction compared to the previous year.
The FSA has also confirmed a number of policy changes that were proposed in its October 2008 consultation paper.
L.D.