The Financial Services Authority has delayed its decision as to whether to ban cash rebates on platforms.

However, it says, the decision to ban cash rebates from product providers to investors and product providers payments to platforms would require “further research to ensure that the implications for consumers are fully understood.”

The FSA originally set out the proposal for a cash rebates ban in its consultation paper CP 10/29 last November.

The industry has already expressed concerns that a ban on cash rebates could prove problematic, especially regarding compulsory platform re-registration.

The FSA said the new rules on platforms are to ensure consumers receive a better service and to create more transparency in the market.

Sheila Nicoll, FSA director of conduct policy, said: “With more and more business being conducted through platforms, it is important that customers are clear who is charging for what and for what service. It is also important that customers and their advisers can move their investments quickly and easily, particularly if they are dissatisfied with the service they receive.

“We also believe that it is likely to be in the best interests of consumers that product providers’ payments to platforms and cash rebates from product providers to investors should be banned. But we need to analyse the impact on consumers and on firms’ business models before we propose any new rules.”

But the Financial Services Consumer Panel was positive that the ban should go ahead.

Adam Phillips, chair of the Panel, said: “Rebates can create bias in favour of more costly products and a potential mechanism for advisers to receive commission. Banning them is the right move.”

Any new rules will not come into force until after the RDR is implemented in 2013.