Hector Sants, Chief Executive of the FSA, said that recent market turbulence and the problems at Northern Rock would not deflect the FSA from its commitment to more principles based regulation. "The FSA is, and will remain, a risk-based and evidence-based regulator", he said. “The FSA will continue to move towards reliance on principles rather than detailed rules”.
Speaking at an FSA conference for retail financial services firms, Sants acknowledged that market conditions and the economic outlook were much less benign than at the time of the equivalent event a year ago. "You should be preparing for this changed environment and you, and your customers, will need to recognise that there are both short and long-term risks, and think about the implications”, he said.
Mr Sants reiterated his determination that the FSA should learn lessons from the events at Northern Rock. He acknowledged that "the supervision of the company did not meet the standards I would expect of the FSA". But he added that "it is by no means necessarily the case that more active supervision on our part would have prevented what later occurred."
Mr Sants commissioned an internal review of the supervision of Northern Rock in the period up to July last year. The publication of its conclusions are expected next month.
Press release
Full speech
© Graham Bishop
Key
Hover over the blue highlighted
text to view the acronym meaning
Hover
over these icons for more information
Comments:
No Comments for this Article