Facts and figures

Essential facts about the Financial Services Authority

What is the FSA?

We are the main statutory regulator for the UK financial services industry. We were established by an Act of Parliament in 2000 and formally gained our powers on 1 December 2001.

We regulate some 29,000 firms, which includes EEA firms passporting into the UK, ranging from global investment banks to very small businesses, and around 165,000 individuals.

What is the FSA's purpose?

We were given four specific, and equal, objectives by Parliament. These are: maintaining market confidence; contributing to the protection and enhancement of the stability of the UK financial system; securing the appropriate degree of protection for consumers; and fighting financial crime.

In practice, this means that we want to make markets work effectively to deliver benefits to firms and consumers. We operate a risk-based approach concentrating on the big risks and accepting that some failure neither can, nor should, be avoided. Potential risks are prioritised, using impact and probability analysis, and we then decide on an appropriate regulatory response – in other words, what approach we will take and how much resource we will allocate to mitigating the risk.

Who pays for the FSA?

Our budget is met from a levy on the firms we regulate. We receive no funding from the taxpayer. The amount each firm pays is determined according to its size and the types of business it undertakes. When financial penalties are imposed on firms or individuals, the proceeds are used to reduce fees in the following financial year.

Our budget for 2011/12 is £492m The budget reflects our intensive approach to supervision and the extensive range of workstreams we plan to deliver to enable us to continue to meet our statutory objectives, while using our resources effectively and efficiently.

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Who decides what the FSA regulate?

The scope of our authority was initially set out in the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (FSMA). Since then, Parliament has extended our responsibilities to include, for example, mortgage lending and insurance broking.

Some financial services, such as consumer credit and occupational pension schemes, are not regulated by the FSA. In addition, some businesses that may appear to be offering financial services, such as buy-to-let property clubs or compensation claim handlers, fall outside the FSA's scope.

Only Parliament currently has the authority to add to our remit.

When deciding how to regulate, we aim to intervene only where there is a market failure and where the benefits of doing so are likely to outweigh the costs. This cost-benefit analysis helps us to achieve a proportionate response to the risks we identify – it is widely regarded as well ahead of practice in most other jurisdictions.

In policy-making, cost-benefit analysis ensures that initial ideas that do not deliver benefits in excess of potential costs are returned to the drawing board or dropped all together. Our analysis is published, enabling interested parties to suggest policy changes.

Who regulates the FSA?

Our powers derive, ultimately, from Parliament; in practice, we are accountable in a number of ways to the public, industry, government and Parliament.

• The independent Practitioner and Consumer Panels, whose status is set out in FSMA, exist to ensure that the views of consumers and the industry are taken into account by us. We are required to respond formally to their representations;
• Complaints against us may be investigated by an independent Complaints Commissioner, whose findings are published;
• There is scope for judicial review of our decisions;
• Our rules are subject to scrutiny by competition authorities;
• We make an annual report to Parliament, which is published, and the chairman and other senior directors make regular appearances before the Commons Treasury Select Committee.

What is the background and experience of the FSA's staff?

We employ approximately 4,000 staff and we expect this to increase to meet increased staffing requirements to deliver these priorities.

Staff are often drawn from (and, indeed, return to) regulated firms and the professional services firms that advise them. More than half our staff comes from the industry and at any one time around 100 people are seconded to or from the industry and other bodies.

Our graduate development programme offers ambitious and talented graduates a unique insight into the full spectrum of financial services. We aim to recruit 60 graduates every year. More than 10% of staff are studying for professional qualifications; many others already hold these.

Staff are able to pursue broad-based careers, with the opportunity to move around the organisation or to specialise. We aim to pay staff around the market median for comparable roles in the industry, with high performers able to earn significantly more than this.

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What does the FSA do to prevent people buying the wrong products?

Our philosophy is that consumers should be provided with the information that they need to make informed decisions about their financial arrangements; that this information should be fair, clear and not misleading; and that customers have the right to expect that any professional advice they receive is appropriate for their individual circumstances.

With these rights, however, come responsibilities – to ensure that the information they provide to their advisers is accurate and complete; to give proper consideration to the products or services being offered to them; and to make sure that they fully understand any risks associated with the product before they buy.

In a competitive market, firms must not be prevented from offering innovative or high-risk products to those investors who are prepared, on the basis of an informed judgement, to accept the risks.

We can – and do – intervene where we see the risk or reality of products being mis-sold. We can issue consumer warnings, via our web site and the media; recent examples have included warnings on high-income bonds, venture capital trusts and equity release schemes. We have a group which identifies potential risk and takes action to, in effect, nip potential problems in the bud. Finally, where individual instances of mis-selling have occurred, we can take enforcement action and secure redress for customers.

Why doesn't the FSA investigate customers' complaints and pay them compensation?

We are only one part of a regulatory framework that also provides a free complaint resolution service and a 'safety net' to provide compensation to individual customers when financial firms go out of business.

The Financial Ombudsman Service adjudicates on complaints that have not been resolved by the relevant firms. We do not duplicate this service by investigating individual complaints ourselves, but we will undertake investigations where it appears that a particular firm or product is attracting a disproportionate number of complaints.

The Financial Services Compensation Scheme steps in when financial firms go out of business owing money to their individual customers. It does not compensate customers for poor investment performance.

We do not provide compensation to consumers. In some enforcement cases, we are able to secure compensation from firms for customers who have lost out as a result of the firms' behaviour. This compensation is paid directly by the firm, not via the FSCS.

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What is the FSA’s role in fighting financial crime?

The reduction of financial crime is one of our four statutory objectives: the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 requires us to aim to reduce the extent to which regulated persons and unauthorised businesses can be ‘used for a purpose connected with financial crime’. Financial crime includes any offence involving money laundering, fraud or dishonesty, or market abuse. The objective interacts with our four other objectives: protecting consumers; market confidence; UK financial stability and public awareness.

In pursuing our financial crime objective, our main focus is on firms’ risk management, systems and controls. We also work closely with the range of other organisations involved in fighting financial crime – such as the government, law enforcement, trade associations, the Joint Money Laundering Steering Group – in developing and delivering effective defences against financial crime.

What does the FSA do to stops scams like boiler rooms?

By definition, scams such as so-called boiler rooms operate outside the regulatory regime, as well as, in many cases, outside the UK, so we rarely have any jurisdiction over them. Some unauthorised firms arrange for their promotional material to be approved by an FSA-regulated firm, in which case we can take action if the material is misleading (one firm was fined £20,000 in 2005 for doing this). We also encourage overseas regulators to take action against scams operating in their countries but targeting the UK.

Our website contains details of scams that have come to our attention, including lists of firms known to be targeting UK investors, but this in an area in which common sense and caution on the part of individual investors is the most effective form of protection.

What is the FSA doing to help the smaller regulated firms?

Around 90% of the firms we regulate are categorised as 'small' and, as such, do not have a dedicated supervisor. One of our three aims is to make it easier for these firms to work with us and when implementing policies we consider carefully the likely effects specifically on small firms.

Recent initiatives to assist small firms include: a firms online service enabling firms to handle most routine dealings with us on the internet, at their own convenience; personal handbooks which allow firms to select only those parts of our rulebook that apply to their business and produce their own reference guide; discounts on FSA fees for firms that operate in many areas but undertake only small amounts of business in each; working with a commercial credit provider to introduce a facility to enable firms to pay their fees by installments; and a series of open events around the country to answer firms' questions and advise them about the implications of new developments.

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