No use having teeth if you don’t bite: FSA shows it has grit.

Below is a press release from the Financial Services Authority in the UK. This is how they deal with executives who cross the line, while we can praise reform in Ireland it is clear to see that we do not come anywhere near the standards set in the UK when it comes to discipline in the market, while over 90% of complaints are against banks, they have the fewest sanctions and yet this is the same banking system which nearly pushed the nation over the edge. The people in charge now are the same people that lead us here and it is shocking that we laud ‘new regulation’ when in fact we are still behind the times.

It is becoming evident that our own banks may have not been totally forthcoming in how they presented their own statements of affairs in the past, will similar sanctions therefore follow?

SA/PN/126/2010

27 July 2010

FSA bans and fines former Northern Rock finance director £320,000 for misreporting mortgage arrears figures

The Financial Services Authority has fined David Jones, former finance director (FD) of …

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Regulation failure: Independent brokers unable to be ‘independent’

We were thinking of changing the way that brokers operate, by saying to our clients ‘our service comes at a price, we’ll advise you on any lender in the market and be totally independent, if we place your loan with one that pays commission you can set that against your fee, and if not then pay the fee’, doing so in the belief that totally transparent and independent advice is a good thing, and something that everybody wants, the broker, the consumer and the Regulator.

Sadly this is not the case, instead the Regulator (soon due another name change to ‘Central Bank Financial Services Authority of Ireland’) is relying on the letter of the law in the Consumer Credit Act of 1995 to ensure that brokers can’t give best advice. This is an example of total regulatory failure.

The actual portion of the code is S. 116.1.b which states ‘A person shall not engage in the business of being a mortgage intermediary unless— ( a ) he is the holder of an authorisation (“a …

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Central Bank Reform Bill 2010

We all want ‘tough regulation’, I would argue it doesn’t need to be tougher, rather it needs to be more pragmatic and enforced, and of those two criteria enforcement being the greater.

The Central Bank Reform Bill 2010 is going to give God powers to the Central Bank/Financial Services Authority of Ireland. Essentially it sets out a framework whereby they can call all of the shots, right down to how companies promote people.

In Part 3 s20(2) they can determine either by their interpretation of title or their interpretation of a persons role, whether they have any controlling function, and if so they require CB/FSAI authority in order to do their job, this is an additional layer of HR activity that will be injected into financial services companies.

Part 3 s35(i) states that a function requires pre-approval if the CB/FSAI deem it to be so on grounds of ‘size or complexity’, yet they don’t state any parameters for same, meaning a mom & pop shop could fall under these rigours based upon the …

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