Sheffield-based Financial Planners Belmayne have enlisted their local MP to help them fight rising FSCS levy costs which have seen the firm hit with £2,000 bill increase.

Belmayne says it is taking its campaign for fairer industry regulation to Westminster with the help of local MP Lee Rowley.

Mr Rowley, who worked previously in financial services, is to write to industry regulators and the National Audit Office expressing concern about the actions of the FCA and raise the issue with the Treasury Select Committee, Belmayne said.

The firm, a member of LinkedIn lobbying group Financial Planners United, is urging an urgent review of the FSCS funding model.

The company says on top of a unexpected FSCS levy bill this year of £2,000 it has also been hit with a 300% increase in the cost of professional indemnity insurance and a 76% increase in FSCS and FCA charges in August.

Belmayne’s partners held a Zoom meeting recently to discuss their worries with Mr Rowley and highlight the threat of rising costs to the firm’s future.

David Bashforth, a partner at Belmayne, based in Dronfield near Sheffield, said: “Honest, respectable Financial Planners are being unfairly penalised by the regulatory system for the actions of an unscrupulous few and the FCA is complicit in this mess.

“We feel our concerns are being ignored and this will have a direct impact on our clients. Our job is to help real, ordinary people prepare for retirement, but we will be unable to continue doing so if our running costs are not kept in check.

 “The current regulatory system is broken, yet there is no one to hold the FCA to account. It refuses to consider real, workable alternatives to its funding model for the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), which unfairly penalises well run companies, particularly the very smallest. We are hoping that with Mr Rowley’s backing, we can widen discussions about the situation we find ourselves in and the human impact the inevitable loss of local financial advisers will have on communities like Dronfield.”

• Financial Planning Today recently interviewed FSCS CEO Caroline Rainbird about the levy and other planner concerns.