Experts call for more scrutiny of regulators

CHRIS DORRELL

NEW PLANS to boost oversight of financial regulators have been criticised by experts, as the government responds to concerns watchdogs face too little scrutiny.

Earlier this week, it was reported that the Treasury is planning to beef up the Financial Regulators Complaints Commissioner (FRCC) in order to more robustly hold regulators to account.

According to the reports, the Treasury will be able to appoint the FRCC’s chief and direct the FRCC to look at specific issues.

matter is actually not so much about Brexit. The EU needs, for its own sake, safe, robust and attractive clearing for a well-functioning [capital markets union],” McGuinness told the FT, The comments come after two days of meetings in London between McGuinness and senior figures in the UK, including the Chancellor, Bank of England and the City of London corporation.

Macfarlanes’s public policy lead David Gauke told City A.M. the proposals “may be welcomed by the industry… [but they] do not address the fundamental lack of accountability inherent in the postBrexit regulatory system”.

Head of Withers UK Financial Services Regulatory Group Harvey Knight said the current complaints commission is “toothless” and so the proposals do represent an “improvement”. But he argued that improving regulatory scrutiny would be difficult without enabling the FRCC to order regulators to pay damages.

as well as a slowdown in repayments in property finance.

Its year-to-date net interest margin remained at 7.8 per cent.

The update comes after a bruising start to the year. At its half year results in March, the firm set aside £100m to cover bad loans from legal-finance specialist Novitas, dragging its adjusted operating profits down 90 per cent to £12.6m.

Close Brothers gave no new update on the Novitas loans, but reaffirmed its belief the provisions “adequately reflect the remaining risk”.

Fellow merchant bank Arbuthnot also delivered a trading statement for the four months of the year, confirming that it was continuing to benefit from the Bank of England’s interest rate hikes. Deposits grew £165m “despite the turbulence”.