Banking
Related information
Information on the FSA's Retail Distribution Review
Overview of the Banking sector team
The objective of the team is to identify and oversee the risks posed by the banking sector to the FSA's four statutory objectives (consumer protection, maintaining clean and orderly financial markets, consumer education and reducing financial crime).
Banks are active across a wide range of financial services activities and they interact with retail, corporate and institutional clients. Our scope therefore includes Retail and Wholesale banks, Building Societies, Investment Banks, and Foreign Banks operating in the UK. However, we do not cover Credit Unions.
Our role is both inward and outward facing:
Internally, we liaise on a regular and ad-hoc basis with all parts of the organisation that have an interest in banking issues. We do this to identify new risks, monitor existing issues, to make certain the regulations and policies affecting the banking sector are coherent and to ensure efficient information exchange. We also strive to ensure that staff working in banking policy and regulation have the appropriate skills and tools.
Externally, we liaise with other bodies that have responsibility for banks' activities, such as the Banking Code Standards Board, which governs banks' self regulation on deposit- taking activities. We represent the FSA on banking issues with a number of trade associations, most notably the British Bankers’ Association, with whom we have regular working-level meetings, and co-ordinate high level meetings during the year.
The team shares the relationships with the Association of Foreign Banks, the Building Societies Association and the London Investment Banking Association with the Wholesale Banks Division, Retail Firms Division and Capital Markets Sector, respectively. We also frequently meet with bank officials, consultants, analysts and other industry stakeholders on banking sector trends and developments and on specific issues.
We do not aim to replace the regular contact the banking community has with different areas of the FSA. Rather, we want to provide an additional channel for the banking industry to communicate their concerns, priorities and objectives and ensure that the FSA is truly ‘in tune’ with the industry.
If you would like to discuss any issues relating to the Banking Sector, please email the Banking Sector team.
Helping to maintain market confidence
A sound banking sector is critical if the FSA is to help maintain and increase market confidence. In light of the policy and practical issues currently facing both the banking sector and the Tripartite authorities, the FSA has created a senior Banking Sector leader role.
Thomas Huertas (from 1 February 2008) is our Director, Banking Sector reporting directly to the FSA Chief Executive, Hector Sants.
This senior appointment acknowledges that recent market developments have expanded the scope and importance of the Banking Sector leader role, with the necessity for the FSA to take forward the various initiatives stemming from the Tripartite Authorities' intended improvements to the banking industry's regulatory architecture.
The Director, Banking Sector role enables the FSA to ensure we have the necessary focus and resources to deliver on these initiatives. Specifically, the role will concentrate on:
- Improving the depositor protection scheme and the resolution regime for troubled banks, in conjunction with the other Tripartite authorities and the FSCS;
- Designing and implementing appropriate changes in the liquidity framework for banks, as well as other elements in prudential regulation such as the definition of own funds;
- Implementing recommendations from the Northern Rock review;
- Strengthening our risk identification and mitigation capabilities in the banking sector, including the introduction of periodic sector reviews;
- Enhancing our resolution capabilities.
Contacts
If you are a consumer with a bank-related issue or query, the Consumer Contact Centre may be able to help you.
If you have a complaint about your bank, please contact you bank in the first instance. Where your bank has not dealt with your query to your satisfaction you can contact the Financial Ombudsman Service.
