Event details
Consumer Choice in Mortgage Markets
The Financial Conduct Authority Conference is a 2 day conference on 4 and 5 October, organised by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Brevan Howard Centre.
This conference, jointly organised by the FCA and the Brevan Howard Centre for Financial Analysis at Imperial College London, aims to bring together the academic and practitioner communities to discuss a number of topics relevant to the dynamics of competition in the UK mortgage sector. The FCA has an overarching objective of ensuring that financial markets, including mortgages, function well. Competition can play a key role in ensuring that this happens, delivering lower prices, better products and choice, and more innovation.
The timing of the conference reflects an attempt to bring the best thinking on the subject to bear on these important objectives. Having conducted a Call for Inputs on competition in the mortgage sector, the FCA announced in May 2016 that it will be launching a targeted market study focused on consumers’ ability to make effective choices.
The full programme can be found here.
A link to interviews conducted with the speakers can be found here.
| Time | Tuesday 4 October |
|---|---|
| 08:00-08:45 | Registration |
| 08:45- 09:00 | Welcome address by Tarun Ramadorai (Imperial College Business School) |
| 09:00-09:30 | Opening Address UK Mortgage Markets, problems and prospects David Miles (Imperial College Business School) |
| 09:30-09:45 | Introduction by Session Chair: Challenges to Consumer Decision Making Deb Jones (Director of Competition, FCA) |
| 09:45-10:30 | Financial Literacy, Present Bias and Alternative Mortgage Products John Gathergood (University of Nottingham) Discussant: Andreas Fuster (Federal Reserve Bank of New York) |
| 10:30-11:15 | Social Networks and Housing Markets Theresa Kuchler (New York University) Discussant: Givanni Favara (Federal Reserve Board) |
| 11.15-11.45 | Tea/Coffee |
| 11.45-12.30 | Practitioner perspectives – Decision-making in mortgages Speaker: Pat Bunton (London & Country) Discussant: Jaedon Green (Leeds Building Society) |
| 12.30-13.15 | Panel Discussion: Decision-making in mortgages |
| 13.15-15.00 | Lunch and Keynote Speech – Household Mortgage Debt Relief Policies and the Real Economy: Lessons from the Great Recession Amit Seru (Stanford Graduate School of Business) |
| 15.00-15.15 | Introduction by Session Chair: Competition, Choice and Innovation Michael Haliassos (Goethe University) |
| 15.15-16.00 | Distorted advice in the mortgage market: Theory and structural estimation Anton Tsoy (Einaudi Institute for Economics and Finance) Discussant: Steffan Andersen (Copenhagen Business School) |
| 16.00-16.45 | How does bank capital affect the supply of mortgages? Evidence from a randomised experiment Enrico Sette (Bank of Italy) Discussant: Nancy Wallace (Berkeley) |
| 16.45-17.00 | Tea/Coffee |
| 17.00-17.45 | Panel Discussion: International mortgage markets: Competition, choice and innovation |
| 18.45-19.30 | Drinks reception |
| Time | Wednesday 5 October |
|---|---|
| 09.00-08.30 | Registration |
| 09.30- 09.45 | Introduction by session chair: Product design and consumer behaviour Barry Naisbitt (Santander) |
| 09.45-10.30 | Complexity in retail financial decisions Peter Andrews (FCA) and Zanna Iscenko (FCA) Discussant: Cristian Badarinzsa (NUS) |
| 10.30-11.15 | Catering to Investors through product complexity Claire Celerier (Zurich) Discussant: Sumit Agarwal (NUS) |
| 11.15-11.45 | Tea/Coffee |
| 11.45-12.30 | Practitioner perspectives – Obfusaction and product proliferation in practice Speaker: Chris Jenkins (Director of Economics, Competition and Markets Authority) Discussant: Pam Meadows (FCA Consumer Panel) |
| 12.30-13.00 | Panel Discussion: Product Design and Consumer behaviour |
| 13.00-14.00 | Lunch |
| 14.00-14.15 | Introduction by session chair: Switching Amelia Fletcher (University of East Anglia) |
| 14.15-15.00 | Inattention and Inertia in Household Finance: Evidence from the Danish Mortgage Market Tarun Ramadorai (Imperial College Business School) Discussant: Christopher Palmer (Berkeley) |
| 15.00-15.45 | Mortgage Refinancing, Consumer Spending, and Competition: Evidence from the Home Affordable Refinancing Program Tomasz Piskorski (Columbia Business School) Discussant: Alex Michaelides (Imperial College Business School) |
| 15.45-16.15 | Tea/Coffee |
| 16.15-16.45 | Practitioner perspectives – mortgage sector approach to switching Speaker: Andrew Baddeley-Chappell (Nationwide) Discussant: James Crump (Ofgem) |
| 16.45-17.30 | Panel Discussion: Facilitating mortgage switching |
| 17.30-18.00 | Closing Speech: The role of consumer decision-making in ensuring good market dynamics in the mortgage sector Chris Woolard (FCA) |
| 18.00-18.10 | Thanks and Closing remarks Tarun Ramadorai (Imperial College Business School) |
The conference will include a drinks reception on Tuesday 4 October from 18.30.