NOT FOR RELEASE, PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION, IN WHOLE OR IN PART, IN, INTO OR FROM ANY JURISDICTION WHERE TO DO SO WOULD CONSTITUTE A VIOLATION OF THE RELEVANT LAWS OF SUCH JURISDICTION
THIS ANNOUNCEMENT CONTAINS INSIDE INFORMATION
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
16 March 2021
Amigo Holdings PLC
("Amigo" or the "Company")
Regulatory update
Amigo provides an update on the Financial Conduct Authority ('FCA') investigation announced on 1 June 2020. The investigation commenced on 29 May 2020 into Amigo's creditworthiness assessment process, and the governance and oversight of this process; it covered the period from 1 November 2018 to date.
The Company was informed after close of market on 15 March 2021 that the FCA has decided to extend the scope of its current investigation so that it can investigate whether Amigo appropriately handled complaints after 20 May 2020 and whether Amigo deployed sufficient resource to address complaints in accordance with the Voluntary Requirement ('VReq') announced on 27 May 2020 and the subsequent variation announced on 3 July 2020.
The FCA investigation will consider whether those complaints have been handled appropriately and whether customers have been treated fairly in accordance with Principle 6 of the FCA's Principles for Business.
Amigo will continue to cooperate fully with the FCA.
Contacts:
Company
Amigo Holdings PLC investors@amigo.me
Kate Patrick Head of Investor Relations
Roger Bennett Company Secretary
Media
Hawthorn Advisors amigo@hawthornadvisors.com
Lorna Cobbett Tel: +44 (0)7771 344 781
This announcement contains inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of the Market Abuse Regulation (EU) 596/2014. The person responsible for this announcement is Roger Bennett, Company Secretary.
-ENDS-
Notes to Editors
§ Amigo announced on 27 May 2020 the agreement of a VReq with the FCA. The VReq related to the resolution of a backlog of complaints, principally arisen during 2020, and an agreement that all complaints were dealt with appropriately by 26 June 2020.
§ Amigo announced on 22 June 2020 that it was in discussions with the FCA to reach agreement on a variation to the VReq, given the substantial increase in complaints since 8 June 2020
§ An amended VReq was subsequently agreed and signed with the FCA, and announced on 3 July 2020, which required Amigo to reach a position by 30 October 2020 where all complaints were dealt with appropriately within eight weeks.
§ Amigo announced on 3 November 2020 that the Company had reviewed and reached a decision on all 25,571 of the complaints included within the VReq as of 30 October 2020. Amigo had yet, at the date of the announcement on 3 November 2020, to issue the final responses to customers on 2,517 of those complaints.
§ 2,209 of the outstanding complaints yet to receive a final response by 30 October 2020, related to a specific group of complaints where significant guarantor payments on a loan have been a feature and the methodology for calculating redress for this specific subset was being discussed with the FCA.