In January 2024, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) launched a review of historical discretionary commissions in the motor finance sector together with a pause to complaints handling on this topic. An unexpected Court of Appeal decision concluded that there could also be consumer harm where other types of commission were paid. The UK Supreme Court is due to consider this judgement in April 2025.

Until the Supreme Court makes a decision, the FCA has decided to pause all motor finance commission complaints.

Please find further information here.

This means you won’t receive a final response to a commission complaint until after 4 December 2025. You will then have up to 15 months from the date of our final response letter or until 29 July 2026 (whichever is the later) to refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service. In the meantime, we’ll acknowledge your complaint and keep you informed of any developments.

BMW Group Financial Services is taking all necessary steps to support the FCA during the course of its review and to ensure that affected customers are supported and provided with every assistance to minimise any inconvenience.

Q&A

Which customers could this apply to?

If you entered into a regulated motor finance agreement on or after 6 April 2007 where commission was paid, you’re likely to be eligible to make a complaint. This will include Select, Hire Purchase, Lease Purchase and Contract Hire agreements.

This applies for any type of commission, eg a discretionary or a non-discretionary one.
 

What is a discretionary commission?

Typically, the amount of commission earned by a dealer or broker was determined by the interest rate that the agreement had been contracted at – the lower the interest rate, the lower the commission the dealer or broker received, and vice versa. This was known as a discretionary commission arrangement. Since January 2021, this commission model is no longer allowed.
 

What is a non-discretionary commission?

This is usually referred to as a fixed commission. This means a fixed amount is paid by us and is calculated based on the vehicle you buy or as a percentage of the amount you borrow. The dealer or broker doesn’t have any discretion to vary the interest rate or APR you pay under your finance agreement.

How do I find out if my agreement was subject to a discretionary or other type of commission?

Please complete our discretionary commission enquiry form by clicking the link below

You’ll need vehicle registration, finance agreement and any other previous postcode / surname at the time of your agreement.

What should I expect if you’ve already confirmed the commission model that applied to my agreement?

• If we’ve sent you a confirmation of your commission model type, we’ll automatically log a commission complaint on your behalf and send you a letter of acknowledgement. As a result of the FCA broadening its review, we’ll do this even if we previously advised that your agreement was out of scope (due to commission type or your product type, eg Contract Hire or Finance Lease).
• No further action is required from you. We’ll investigate your complaint but won’t be able to send a final response until after the FCA commission complaints pause, ie after 4 December 2025.
  

Where can I log a commission complaint?

You can register a complaint here

Please provide vehicle registration, finance agreement number and any other previous postcode / surname at the time of your agreement.


When can I expect to hear from you?

A commission enquiry can take us a while to respond to if we can’t match your information to our records but we will come back to you and ask for additional information.

We’ll acknowledge receipt of your complaint straight away. Post the FCA review and commission complaints pause, we expect to be able to issue a final response to you after 4 December 2025. We’ll keep you informed of any developments in the meantime.

The complaints pause doesn’t apply to non-discretionary commission complaints received before 26 October 2024 so we’re able to respond to these within the usual 8-week period.


Where can I find further information from the Financial Conduct Authority?

https://www.fca.org.uk/consumers/car-finance-complaints
 

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