Fisa To Stop Trading

The current economic slowdown and subsequent recession has claimed several victims over the past year, particularly in the finance sector and amongst companies who offer secured loans, with the lenders such as Picture Loans & First Plus stoping lending and many others restricting there lending criteria.

The latest organisation to feel the effects of the credit crunch is the Finance Industry Standards Association (FISA), the self regulating body which was set up to promote higher standards amongst secured loan brokers and intermediaries within the finance industry, as well as offering an advice service to consumers.

In an announcement this week, FISA said that it was being forced to close down its business activities as from the middle of April this year, as a “direct consequence” of the difficult market conditions within the secured loan sector. As the number of secured loan brokers and intermediaries has fallen over recent months due to firms closing down, so has the number of FISA members and the FISA board have said that there are no realistically viable options for the organisation to be able to continue trading.

Finance Brokers
A finance broker is a company who help consumers arrange finance usually via a loan or remortgage, Finance Brokers usually have a panel of lenders and will examine their panel to find a loan for their client.

The chief executive of FISA, John Parker commented on the decision. He said “It is a direct consequence of the extremely tough lending conditions which has meant that there are not as many lenders lending and the number of brokers in existence is reducing severely. As all FISA does is work in the secured loan sector, obviously the severe reduction in the number of firms has had a direct impact on our revenue. The board has looked at a number of options to see whether we could carry on operating and still provide a meaningful service to members, but really none of the options were viable.

Mr Parker also said that it was important that the work FISA did to promote better standards in the secured loan sector continued and this work will now be taken over by the Association of Finance Brokers (AFB), who have offered any secured loan brokers who are already existing FISA members, six months free membership of the AFB.