FCA says Premier FX’s customers should get apology, not additional compensation

Today, the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published its response to the Financial Regulators Complaints Commissioner’s Final Report into complaints from those affected by the collapse of Premier FX Limited in 2018.

In what may be viewed as a rather cynical statement, the FCA says an apology is the appropriate remedy in this case.

“In paragraph 158 of the Final Report, the Commissioner recommends that ‘the FCA pays 4% simple interest in total (not per year) on the capital recovered from the Liquidator and Barclays per complaint (of which there are 33). This is subject to the money lost and recovered having been paid to PFX after 25 February 2011.’

We (that is, the FCA – ed.) believe the most appropriate remedy in this case is an apology and a payment to recognise our complaint handling delays, which we made in line with our published approach when first responding to the complaints”.

The failure of Premier FX caused serious worry for people who had entrusted it with their money.

Put otherwise, the FCA does not believe it should pay compensation to Premier FX’s customers beyond the payments it has made for delays in the handling of people’s complaints.

The direct cause of Premier FX’s collapse were the decisions of the firm and its sole director, the regulator claims.

The FCA says:

“Our work, dedicating over 12,000 hours to our successful enforcement investigations, ensured the 167 customers with accepted claims received back all the money they had paid to Premier FX, with Barclays, the firm’s banker, agreeing a voluntary payment of £10,076,943.75”.

The FCA will be writing to the complainants to explain what steps have been taken to strengthen its regulatory processes and improvements made to its Register.