Turner says Financial Policy Committee will be most important reform
FSA chairman Lord Turner says that the most important element in regulatory reform will be the Bank of England’s Financial Planning Committee.
In his Mansion House speech tonight (Thurs) he focused on the future of regulatory reform and of the need to ban bad products and misleading advertisements in future.
He spoke about how the reform of the regulatory system would ensure better results than in the past but that uncertainties remain which need to considered by Parliament.
Regarding the Financial Conduct Authority, which will partly replace the FSA, he said the body would need the power to act early to prevent consumer detriment, including banning products and withdrawing misleading adverts.
He said: “In financial services the potential for the customer to be ripped off is simply far greater than in other sectors of the economy - and the consequences potentially more significant.
“The challenge for the Financial Conduct Authority will be how to counter that danger.”
He talked too about the implementation of the three new bodies, the Financial Conduct Authority, Prudential Regulation Authority and the Bank of England’s Financial Policy Committee in 2013.
The Financial Policy Committee, he said, would be the “most important element to address the failures that led to the financial crisis.”
But it still needed to be decided whether “the FPC should focus solely on financial stability or on the adequacy of credit supply to the real economy as an end in itself, important for macro-economic stability.”