A Video Interview with Alex Brummer
Alex Brummer, internationally acclaimed City Editor of the Daily Mail speaks about fairness in the finance and loans industry.....
Alex Brummer Interview Transcript
Roger Gewolb, the driving force behind the Campaign for Fairer Finance, speaks with Alex Brummer, Financial and City Editor of the Daily Mail and This Is Money; columnist for The Newstatesman and author of 'Bad Banks: Greed, Incompetence and the Next Global Crisis' on his concerns with Price Comparison Websites and the Consumer Finance Market.
Roger Gewolb:
I'm here today at the Daily Mail to speak with Alex Brummer the city editor, the financial editor of the mail, the money mail, and this is money. One of the most respected and influential financial journalists in the country who writes prolifically both in his newspaper and in books that he's published about fairness and finance.
Alex, a lot of people struggle this time of year for cash, always. How fair is the loans market for them now?
Alex Brummer:
The financial crisis is has produced really unfair terrain where people, ordinary people and not just people who are out of work, but ordinary people really struggle to get the credit they need at a fair price, at a price they can actually afford and it's a great hole in the market.
Roger Gewolb:
Well that certainly seems to be the problem. Well what can be done about it?
Alex Brummer:
Well there's obviously things which are going on I mean the government has taken some action in terms of trying to cap the cost a some of these fly by night payday lenders and so on and also it's an issue which is going to come up in the competition and market's review of the whole banking sector, but that that's all going to take a long time to have any effect.
I think we just need to bring some new players into the market. We also need to have a place, some places where people know they can go and get the right kind advice and good clean advice which isn't corrupted in any kind of way.
Roger Gewolb:
What about comparison web sites? Is there a particular role for them to play in the market?
Alex Brummer:
Personally I've always been deeply suspicious of comparison web sites. We don't know how they're compiled, we don't know who owns them. There's very little transparency and my understanding is that the way that many of the people who display these web sites, the internet suppliers and so on operate, is to give the best place on those comparison web sites to the people who pay the highest buck and I think that is a rather dangerous precedent.
I'd like to see something which was much fairer, flat earth and something people would actually believe in. In many cases I worry about this all the time and I'm not just talking about getting loans, I'm talking about the whole area personal finance up from car insurance right across to home insurance, right across the gamut of financial services.
There is a worry about the independence of those sites it would be nice to think that we could have sites which would actually believe in and trust.
Roger Gewolb:
Coming back to the word fair Alex, I'm a consumer, what should I really expect, what should subprime people lie awake at night wondering how they're going to make ends meet, this is certainly not being dealt with fairly when somebody charges them four thousand percent interest as you say, but what should they expect, generally, across-the-board?
Alex Brummer:
Firstly they should expect to get a square deal, an honest deal, there should be no hidden charges. For instance they need to know what those interest rates are, it needs to be absolutely transparent and clear, not spelt out in pound terms but people actually need to see the percentages because I think they can be very very frightening.
But they also need to know that the person who's providing that loan has their interests in mind not their own interests in mind and I think that's really quite difficult and I think that's why people, some people, have fled to things like credit unions and so on, because I they know that the people are basically on their side.
Roger Gewolb:
And how do you think the FCA, the financial conduct authority, is approaching this? It seems to me that they're headed in the right direction.
They want treating customers fairly TCF as they put it to be in the DNA of every firm. Do you think they're moving in the right direction?
Absolutely. I think that they do see themselves as consumer champion and that really is quite important because quite often financial consumers in particular have felt they had nobody they can turn to in times of trouble. I think the FCA's trying to trying to do that.
Roger Gewolb:
Fill that role.
Alex Brummer:
Also trying to simplify things for them, because life, financial life is incredibly complicated. I'm a financial editor and I find it hard to understand so how does the ordinary Joe on street expect to get around that?
Roger Gewolb:
So we're going off and continue this inquiry and track down as much as we can specifically what is needed from lenders, regulators, journalists to increase the amount of fairness that the consumer actually gets.
May I ask you, whom do you think we should speak to? I mean could you maybe arrange that George Osborne and Ed Balls and the UKIP shadow Secretary sit down with us and talk about what each of their parties would do to help the consumer with fair lending?
Alex Brummer:
Well I think, I think you're in a good place because we're coming into, coming into a general election campaign, which will take, which, is already starting actually very soon.
Roger Gewolb:
But excuse me they're not mention this at all. They're talking about the government's deficit, but not the public's deficit.
Alex Brummer:
No but they were I think you they need to engage with what has happened. I think all of those people you mention, all the leading parties and all the leading politicians should be forced out into the open on these issues of financial fairness then this.
Roger Gewolb:
Could we get them around this table here at the Mail and you moderate?
Alex Brummer:
I'm not sure we'll get them around here at a table with the Mail but maybe in the House of Commons or somewhere else, we ought to find some neutral territory.
Roger Gewolb:
We'll go anywhere. I think also you ought to be talking to the bankers I think that the best place to...
Roger Gewolb:
We will.
Alex Brummer
...help get the unified voice is to go to the British Bankers Association. Ask them what they're doing, they spend most of their time defending the banks and I think it's time for us to get at them and ask them what they're doing for ordinary people, ordinary customers those people who can't get access to finance, these people you're talking about and the people who run the credit cards associations and so on.
And of course get the people who see these cases, the ones who got the longest list of people have gone through hardship, who have been badly treated, who haven't had a fair deal from the financial system, are the Citizens Advice people and they really do have the case studies and the information.
Roger Gewolb:
Absolutely.
Alex Brummer:
And it's good to go and see them to understand the kind the problems that people get into.
Roger Gewolb:
You were brilliant, that was fantastic.
Alex Brummer:
Good, thank you very much indeed.
