MSE News: Treasury sets out new financial watchdog powers

peterbaker

Dan's article and this thread fill me with mirth and dread in turns.

I am old enough to remember IMRO LAUTRO and P-something, big bangs, little fizzes, GISC, IBRC, ABI, BIBA->BIIBA, Lloyd's Correspondents Department (now that's a long one and they were correspondingly fierce!), Lloyd's regulating itself, Lloyd's and London Insurance Markets taking a break from all this regulation malarky 10 years ago and sitting on the back garden fence whilst GISC knocked on the front door, Insurance Ombudsmen, Banking Ombudsmen, BBA's Angela Knight as a tasty looking bird, and fair play.

How times have changed (well some have not!).

I suspect Dan may have seen a lot of water under the bridge too.

His comment "We now must all hope that by shortening the name, consumer protection doesn't end up in the gutter." is actually pretty astute ... after all is said and done, what is in a name? (And what most pointedly now is not?).

PS That part about AK is pure fantasy and I think part concocted from reminiscensces of those halcyon days when Ronald Reagan was reputed to have quite fancied Margaret Thatcher :rotfl:

PPS Reading Snowman's observation that FCA once stood for FC Amager who were a bankrupted Danish Football Club makes me shiver a bit as just two weeks or so ago a bank of the same name (Amager) also went bust. There's actually nothing new under the sun, eh?

harryhound

Well at least we seem to have the BoE back in charge and a proposed structure something like I was advocating back in the gathering storm following the Northern Rock collapse.

Remember the 1970's secondary banks life boat ? Organised by locking the chairmen & chief executives in the basement of the BoE until they signed on the dotted line late on a Friday night?

Come to think of it that property collapse was triggered by unexpected changes in the oil supply - Keep an eye on the "Middle East".
Those were the days when casino banks were called "Merchant Banks" and had a reputation for knowing what they were doing.
The secondary banks, fronted by the likes of Jeremy Thorpe, grew up in an inflationary economy, where fortunes could be made getting change of use on existing buildings/sites financed by borrowed money. The iconic example was the deliberately empty "Centre Point" sky scraper office development.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centre_Point

I think there are a few too many parallels with today's situation - just put "Jeremy Thorpe" bank into Google and you will see what I mean.

stevepett

Is there any chance that the new, no doubt more expensive, Regulators will lead from the front, not merely blame everyone else for their and their predecessors failings and deceits?
Will they, unlike the FSA, have the countries best interests at heart, not their own empire building? After all, it hardly makes sense to replace over 250,000 lost financial advisers with civil servants, but that is the FSAs second best achievement (well, they have done the first part successfully, and are working on replacing them.)
Their greatest achievement (with their predecessors) was being the greatest financial disaster ever for the UK, no mean achievement in 20 short years. They screwed up the economy, messed up with Equitable Life, Pension Transfers, cut the value of endowments by 30% single handed, lied to consumers and advisers alike.
Maybe the new lot will be an improvement, but I suspect it will be the same staff misguided by the same doctrinaire and ignorant senior staff who despise the industry and will only interact with the rich and powerful where job prospects are potentially on offer.

Not that I am cynical (or a financial advise)!

Milarky

stevepett wrote: »

They.. cut the value of endowments by 30% single handed

How'd they do that one - are you referring to the time the FSA ''didn't'' make Standard Life dump their shares in early 2004 ?

harryhound

Steve is a will writer if I remember the "monica" correctly?

I think in some ways we are suffering from a mixture of too little regulation and too much.
The sheeple need massive protection so they cannot flood MP's surgeries complaining about being greedy and then being ripped off.
Meanwhile the casino banks were though to be able to look after themselves and the regulations were removed.