isdoo wrote on Jun 15
th, 2014 at 8:53am:
Shame that insurance / banking is not covered by the new rules. Goodness knows why.
The financial services sector is regulated differently - often more strictly - than other sectors. Most of the provisions in the Consumer Rights Directive, quite rightly, would be of no relevance to banks and insurance companies and so they were not covered within its scope. (There was no specific exemption granted from particular provisions of the Directive - the financial services sector was simply not covered.)
The provisions covering customer service telephone numbers could however (indeed should) be applied equally to financial services and so efforts were made, by BIS and the fair telecoms campaign, to pursuade the Financial Conduct Authority to bring in equivalent regulations in parallel. (This was confirmed when the provisions were
announced.)
Sadly Which? was also involved in these efforts and was content to declare a victory when the FCA finally announced, just over a month ago, that it would be bringing in these regulations in around twlelve months time.
This issue was discussed and explained on Money Box on 19 April - listen at
http://tiny.cc/ftcrad118. (Reference is made to a previous Money Box item, which can be heard at
http://tiny.cc/ftcrad105.)