FSA bans two brokers

The UK’s financial regulator, the Financial Services Authority, has banned two brokers from a firm in Ilford after funding them guilty of falsifying applications to lenders.

The two brokers, Amjad Malik and Tahir Mahmood from Abbaci Associates, were found guilty of falsifying various facts when submitting customer applications to lenders.

One of the two brokers was found to have claimed that one customer had been employed by him. In fact, the customers had not been employed by the broker at any point, and the broker had provided false wage slips to support the customer’s application for a mortgage.

One official from the Financial Services Authority stated: “The actions of the these two partners posed a risk to lenders, and banning them supports the FSA’s financial crime objective as well as our consumer protection and market confidence objectives. It is part of a wider effort to tackle mortgage fraud, which includes working alongside other authorities such as the police, and acting on information received from lenders and whistleblowers.”

The business of falsifying applications and documentation such as wage slips has caused great concern amongst regulators, as it means that many people are ending up with mortgage loans that they simply cannot afford, leaving them at increased risk of repossession.