UK
Does this mean the FSA will have to make all those supervisors redundant?
24 June 2009
Robert Peston claims to have unearthed some interesting information about the Tories’ intentions for UK banking supervision.
While Alastair Darling is steadfastly ignoring calls for reform of the tripartite regulatory system, Pesto says the Tories are preparing to shift regulatory and supervisory powers back from the FSA to the Bank of England
Given the FSA’s record, this might be a good idea, but where would it leave all the new supervisory staff the FSA’s been so vigorously sucking in?
According to the regulator’s annual report, released today, it’s added 177 extra supervisors in the past year. It would surely be a small shame if they were all emitted after the next election.
The FSA declined to comment, but fortunately this scenario looks unlikely. In one of his increasingly frequent appearances before the Treasury Select Committee, FSA chairman Adair Turner pointed out that when supervisory responsibilities went from the Bank to the FSA, the BofE’s supervisory staff simply swapped buildings. The same would therefore (probably) happen if those responsibilities moved back again.
And lest we forget FSA is a private company funded by fees from members whereas the BoE is sweet public sector goodness. From a pension angle a move back to BoE could be good for FSA underlings.
Chaz 24 Jun 2009
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