Who: Committee of Advertising Practice Ltd (“CAP”)
Where: United Kingdom
When: 21 August 2013
Law stated as at: 3 September 2013
What happened:
CAP has made amendments to each of the sections 14 (Financial products, services and investments) in the UK Code of Non-Broadcast Advertising, Sales Promotion and Direct Marketing (“CAP Code”) and the UK Code of Broadcast Advertising (“BCAP Code”) to reflect the recent change in the UK regulatory structure and changes in the legislation governing the advertising and marketing of financial services products.
The changes appear to be relatively light touch and focussed towards updating each of the Codes. For example, in light of the dissolution of the Financial Services Authority (the “FSA”) and its replacement with the Financial Conduct Authority (the “FCA”), each of the Codes has been updated so that any references to the “FSA” now read “FCA”.
Furthermore there are amendments to reflect changes in the legislation since each of the Codes were drafted. This is evident in section 14.11 of BCAP Code which now refers to the Consumer Credit (Advertisements) Regulations 2010 as opposed to its predecessor, the Consumer Credit (Advertisements) Regulations 2004.
Why this matters:
The changes to the Codes are geared towards updating each of the Codes and come in good time for the eventual shift in the regulation of consumer credit from the Office of Fair Trading to the FCA in early 2014. The Codes act as a helpful point of reference to the primary legislation governing the advertising and marketing of financial services products and as such the amendments updating the Codes were long overdue.
