.....to highlight financial scandals

The Government is to hand “super-complainant” powers to consumer groups, giving them privileged access to regulators to draw attention to potential financial scandals.

Groups such as the Federation of Small Businesses and Which? are being invited to apply for the new status that will enable them to fast-track consumer complaints to Britain’s new market regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The FCA will be required to respond to any issue raised by a super-complainant within 90 day, which the government hopes will lead to swifter interventions by regulators to prevent mis-selling scandals such as payment protection insurance and interest rate swaps. Under the new powers, the regulators will have to set out a plan of action for dealing with potential mis-selling issues, or explain in detail why it is not taking action if they think the complaint has no merit. Greg Clark, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, said that potential super-complaints could apply from today and that the first round of designations would be announced later this year.....Read more here