FSCS Levy

The FSCS has published its final levy for 2014/15, being £276m compared to £285m for the previous year.

Although the final levy comes in below the earlier indicative levy for 2014/15 (£313m) that was contained in the “Plan and Budget: 2014/15”, the headline fall does not necessarily mean that all parts of the industry will benefit.

Whilst fund managers can look forward to a rebate from the FCSC (as a result of successful recoveries relating to the failure of Keydata), Life & Pensions intermediaries and Investment intermediaries face an increase of 150% and 43% respectively.

This year’s levy was the first to be calculated using the new 36 month approach. In essence the FSCS calculates its expected compensation costs over the next three years and then imposes a levy based upon the higher of either one-third of this figure or the costs expected over the next 12 months. In this way the FSCS hope to reduce the volatility of annual levies and provide the industry with greater certainty.