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MSE News: Ex-Northern Rock directors misled over mortgage arrears stats
Former_MSE_Guy
Former MSE 1.7K Posts
This is the discussion thread for the following MSE News Story:
"Two former senior employees have been fined and banned after understating the number of customers behind on payments ..."
"Two former senior employees have been fined and banned after understating the number of customers behind on payments ..."
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Ex-Northern Rock directors misled over mortgage arrears stats
Ex-Northern Rock directors misled over mortgage arrears stats
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These fines will just help the guys at Canary Wharf bump up their bonus's.
Is the FSA finally growing some cojones?
That said, I read elsewhere that David Baker said of the fine, "I made an error of judgment and I regret it." If it were up to me, I'd fine him another £0.5m per year until he says, "I told a blatant lie because I thought the FSA would let me get away with it."
Am I too harsh?
The whole business with appointing your own auditor, like Del Boy hiring Arthur Dailey (Anderson) to audit his books, is a farce. Why don't I just find my own corrupt driving test examiner, slip him a twenty, and skip the formalities.
I had a conversation with an ACA qualified auditor, and it's a joke.
There is no way you can go through everything,
so you take some samples of the books. The junior auditors do all the work, and then the senior partners tell them to throw away the dodgy ones, if the client pays really well. In the end, the auditor is only expressing an "opinion", NOT a guarantee that the accounts bear a true and fair reflection of the company. The senior partner signing the accounts just pleads ignorance, that the junior auditor actually did the work, so he can only be done for poor supervision.
The small self-employed people have no such fat fees to extract, so the auditors actually look at the books, and "see" the violations they were blind to in the million pound fee audits.
I think some sort government run department of integrated tax inspector/auditor that combine Revenue and FSA functions should be set up. This will lend the man power of the HMRC to the FSA, who will at last have a fighting chance.
In terms of funding, if I have to pay for my car to pass the MOT once a year, I think a company should pay the FSA for an audit MOT. The cost is probably proprortional to capitalisation.
What we actually need is to embed HMRC/FSA compliance software inside ALL MIS (Management Information System, aka BIS). Any suspicious transactions can be automatically logged. Things like reserve ratios can be calculated daily, AUTOMATICALLY. Actually, you can probably do it every minute, but that would silly. I'm sure it's a warning a properly run bank wants to know, that it is close to the limit.
and the job of the 2 below ...was what??
Clive Briault Head of Retail David Strachan Supervising large retail firms
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article3517067.ece
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article3586950.ece
That's why we need an army of bitter twisted power hungry administrators who hate bankers.
What I mean is no more Coopers, Erst & Young, etc. ALL audits must be done by fixed fee boring bureaucrats, just like a driving test. There seems to be three loads of external people looking at these accounts and financial manoeuvrings: appointed external auditor, HMRC tax inspectors, and FSA compliance officers. Isn't there some kind of synergy to be had here?
What we want is an army of bureaucrats who will be sacked for taking a bribe, and reprimanded for failing to spot violations. Recruit bookwarms that bankers don't want to invite as friends, because they are too ugly and have no social skills, so they have no chance of getting a banking job in the private sector. We want them to hold a grudge against the rich champagne swilling bankers, and will nail any transgresser with relish. Hopefully, £30k~£50k plus a civil service pension will attract suitable Hitler wannabes.