PTR, GDPR and PSD2 fall off the tongue as if they are all barriers to doing business, when in reality they are all part and parcel of putting consumers first and protecting them from the unscrupulous practices we have seen and still see every day.
Although the 2018 Package Travel Regulations have been rushed and should have been debated more, their timing is welcome. The new rules will pull into line those traders who have used legal loopholes.
There will always be those who will look for loopholes for a short-term price advantage but sooner or later the regulators (or HMRC) plug the gaps. Remember Lowcostholidays? They were licensed and bonded in Spain – at a great price advantage, no doubt – but it was their customers who suffered losses when they went bust.
From July 1, any firm established in the EU will be able to sell holidays from the UK. Barrhead Travel will not be selling these EU tour operators unless their regulatory regime is as good as or better than the CAA’s.
There are still gaps in the regulations, particularly around airline insolvency. Of course, booking through a good travel agent with Scheduled Airline Failure Insurance has always offered customers financial protection. At least the regulators have now realised that airlines are an issue: the airline insolvency review was launched this month – about 10 years late. The jury is out on that one, but the bottom line is that the situation is a huge grey area. Look at Monarch Airlines’ failure – the government repatriated everyone, regardless of their Atol protection, leaving customers, agents and tour operators who had paid for bonding or insurance bewildered.
Airlines must ask themselves what would happen if they went bust and what financial protection is in place to repatriate and refund their customers. If they cannot answer that, they must be pulled into line before there is another financial failure costing taxpayers a fortune.
The GDPR is a step towards regulating personal data and protecting it from exploitation. Even the Information Commissioner’s Office has realised the law will need to be regularly clarified and updated.
Personal data is the core asset of a business and will become ever more so as artificial intelligence offers answers more accurately and quickly than people. But data is an asset, and so has a value – and maybe it should have a price.
Experts say PSD2 will see direct payments replaced by credit cards by 2025. The point of PSD2 was to break the banks’ monopoly on customer payments and their questionable charges, so I welcome this. And I expect many customers will not forget how the banks have treated them.
Change is too fast for us to grasp all the issues that will affect consumers, so it is up to those in business to be transparent and put the consumer first – upholding the spirit of the law.
Bill Munro is chairman of Barrhead Travel
