Commentary on Sections Financial information about businesses Section 6: Sections 4 and 5: supplementary
126.This section supplements the power for the Treasury to make regulations in sections 4 and 5. Subsections (1) to (3) enable the regulations to confer functions on the Financial Conduct Authority, to do with the monitoring and enforcement of compliance with the regulations, which may include applying a modified version of the monitoring and enforcement regime in the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000.
127.Subsection (4) provides the Treasury with a power to extend the remit of the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) so that a complaint may be referred to the FOS about a designated CRA or designated finance platform. This will allow the remit of the FOS to be amended such that a person who would be able to seek a FOS decision when dealing with a CRA or finance platform authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority is also able to seek a FOS decision when dealing with a designated CRA or finance platform that is not so authorised. And it will also enable all those businesses that generally have recourse to the FOS (those with turnover of less than £2 million) to seek FOS decisions in respect of the activities of designated CRAs and finance platforms, rather than just individuals and small firms as at present.
128.Subsection (5) enables the regulations to require designated CRAs to provide information received under the regulations to the Bank of England, subject to provision to protect the confidentiality of the information.
129.Subsection (6) enables the regulations to provide that where a designated bank or CRA has failed to comply with a duty to provide information, a person may sue to recover any loss suffered as a result of that failure.
130.Subsection (7) enables the regulations to apply provisions in the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Consumer Credit Act 1974 about access and correction of information about individuals and small firms to designated CRAs that are not authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 in the same way that those provisions apply to CRAs that are authorised, so that the same protections apply to information about individuals and small firms provided to a CRA under the regulations, whatever the status of the CRA.
131.Subsection (8) enables the regulations to provide a small or medium-sized business with the right to apply to a court for an order to rectify, block, erase or destroy data held about the business by a designated CRA. This enables the regulations to mirror an equivalent provision in section 14 of the Data Protection Act 1998 which applies only to personal data about individuals.
132.Subsection (9) provides for the regulations to impose a duty on designated finance platforms to provide statistical information to the Treasury.
133.Subsection (10) requires regulations under sections 4 and 5 to be approved by both Houses of Parliament before being made by the Treasury.