The House of Commons Treasury Committee has launched a new inquiry into the government’s Financial Inclusion Strategy, examining ‘whether the government understands the true scale of the challenge of addressing financial exclusion, as well as what steps must be taken to make a meaningful difference to people’s lives’. The inquiry will also consider the effectiveness of current measures, such as banking hubs, and explore whether further interventions may be needed to improve financial inclusion in the future.

The House of Commons Treasury Select Committee has published correspondence dated 14 December 2022 from the chief executive of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), Nikhil Rathi, to the chair of the Treasury Select Committee, Harriet Baldwin MP, incorporating responses to Baldwin’s letter dated 1 December 2022 and topics addressed in Rathi’s appearance before the Committee on 7 November. Rathi addresses topics including: FCA recruitment for vacancies amounting to just over 10% of its headcount, noting that the highest number of vacancies are in the FCA’s Enforcement and Markets Oversight (EMO) Division; authorisations and the FCA’s shift to a more assertive Gateway; the FCA’s actions on the Blackmore Bonds scheme including those that were previously confidential; the complex investigations involving multiple parties related to the suspension of the LF Woodford Equity Income Fund which are now at an advanced stage; and the embedding of the Consumer Duty into FCA supervision and enforcement. Rathi also summarises the FCA’s actions on mortgages and the cost-of-living crisis, mortgage prisoners, and borrowers affected by cladding.

The Treasury Committee has published its correspondence with first direct (a brand of HSBC UK), TSB Bank, Nationwide Building Society, and Lloyds Banking Group on IT failures.

The Treasury Committee has published the government’s response to its report on student loans, following the Committee’s finding that the way loans had been presented to prospective borrowers amounted to mis-selling. The government has agreed to revise its guidance to state clearly that student loan terms are governed by legislation and may be changed by future governments. It will also provide further information explaining how life and career choices may affect repayments. However, the government has not committed to reversing the repayment threshold freeze or to replacing the Retail Price Index as the measure used to calculate interest. It has also rejected the Committee’s recommendation to apply the Financial Conduct Authority’s Consumer Duty to student loan materials, stating that student finance is a statutory, taxpayer-funded system rather than a commercial lending product.

The Treasury Committee has published data showing that nine of the top banks and building societies operating in the UK accumulated at least 803 hours, the equivalent of more than 33 days, of unplanned tech and systems outages in the last two years. The data is contained in correspondence from Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, Nationwide, Santander, NatWest, Danske Bank, Bank of Ireland and Allied Irish Bank. Links to this correspondence may be found in the Treasury Committee’s press release.

The Treasury Committee has published new de-banking figures ahead of the final session of the inquiry into whether SMEs have adequate access to financing. The results show that more than 140,000 business accounts were closed by major banks.

The Treasury Committee has published a summary of a ‘Sexism in the City’ engagement event held on 14 November 2023. As part of its inquiry examining the barriers faced by women in financial services and the progress made in removing gender pay gaps, the Committee met with 40 women from over 30 firms in the financial services sector, including banking, insurance, and asset management companies. Attendees suggested various actions that could be taken to improve outcomes for women in the sector.

The Treasury Committee has published correspondence from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) confirming its intention to consult on an industry-wide redress scheme for motor finance customers. The FCA’s decision follows the Supreme Court’s ruling that brokers—typically car dealers—did not owe a fiduciary duty to customers. The FCA aims to publish the consultation by early October 2025 and begin compensation payments in 2026.

The Treasury Committee has written to the Economic Secretary to the Treasury following an outage affecting Amazon Web Services that disrupted several firms including Lloyds Banking Group. The Committee questions why HM Treasury has not designated Amazon Web Services or any other technology firm as a critical third party (CTP) under the Critical Third Parties Regime, which became effective in January 2025 but has yet to designate any firms. The regime was established by HM Treasury, the Bank of England and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) under changes to the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 to manage potential disruption to the UK financial services sector. The Committee also asks about the timeline for bringing firms into the regime and potential impacts on HMRC from the outage.

The Treasury Committee has published correspondence with the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) about its card scheme review and enforcement powers. Following an evidence session on 30 January 2024, the Committee expressed concern about the time it is taking for the PSR to consult on card payment fees and the proposed temporary card fee price cap that it is consulting on. The Committee asked a series of questions about the PSR’s enforcement powers; developments in scheme and processing fees; and Visa and Mastercard’s co-operation with the PSR’s reviews.

The House of Commons Treasury Committee, chaired by Dame Meg Hillier MP, has written to the CEO of Barclays UK, Vim Maru, requesting detailed information on the IT outage reported on 31 January 2025. At the same time, Hillier has written to the CEOs of NatWest Group, Santander, Danske Bank, Nationwide Building Society, Allied Irish Bank, HSBC (UK), Lloyds Banking Group, and Bank of Ireland (UK), requesting information on the scale and impact of IT failures which have affected their businesses over the last two years. Responses are due by 26 February 2025. The Committee aims to assess the state of IT systems supporting UK banking services.

The House of Commons Treasury Committee has published its ninth report of session 2024–25, titled ‘Financial Ombudsman Service: Accountability to the House of Commons’, examining the departure of Abby Thomas as chief executive officer and chief ombudsman of the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS). The Committee found that her dismissal followed a mutual collapse in confidence between Thomas and the FOS board, due to fundamental disagreements over strategy, management and operations.