Thursday 10 March 2011

The Treasury proposes a new framework for financial regulation

The Treasury has just produced a paper outlining a new framework for financial sector regulation. The paper proposes three new innovations:
  • A new Financial Policy Committee (FPC) will be established in the Bank of England, with responsibility for ‘macro-prudential’ regulation, or regulation of stability and resilience of the financial system as a whole;

  • Micro-prudential (that is, firm-specific) regulation of financial institutions that manage significant risks will be carried out by an independent subsidiary of the Bank of England, the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA);
  • Responsibility for business regulation will be transferred to a new regulator - the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The FCA will have responsibility for conduct issues across the entire spectrum of financial services.

The strategy has at least two commendable features; the Financial Services Agency will be, for all practical purposes, abolished. As such, we are witnessing a rare example of insitutional accountability. The FSA's failure is being justly punished.

Second, the Bank of England is now back in the driving seat. It has primary responsibility for overseeing the financial system. In practical terms, it is a return to the pre-1997 position, thus unwinding the nightmarish Brownite experimentation in financial sector supervision.

However, on more substantive regulatory reform, the strategy is disappointing. Instead of promptly pushing for higher capital and liquidity requirements, the strategy has placed its trust in Basel III - a multi-lateral approach to enhancing financial sector regulation.

We are likely to wait a long time for an international consensus for tighter capital and liquidity requirements. It would be far better to circumvent these tedious discussions, act unilaterally and decisively strengthen our national regulatory framework. The government should propose higher mandatory capital and liquidity requirements.

Bankers will inevitably complain that tighter regulation will reduce UK financial sector competitiveness. There are two ripostes to this argument. First, the UK is excessively dependent on financial services. We need to diversify, and some downsizing of the city of London would be no bad thing. Second, tighter regulation might have powerful reputational effects, strengthening UK bank balance sheets, which might limit some of this loss in competitiveness.

In any event, tighter regulation is needed in order to avoid a repetition of the 2008 financial crisis. The sooner the government acts to constrain reckless banking practices, the better.

4 comments:

Vladimir the bad said...

Banks will find a way to evade regulations. They always do.

Elby the Beserk said...

So how does this work to prevent what happened in 2008? It seems to me that we are already moving fast down the road to a further crash.

Tomrat said...

I agree that we need to decouple from over-dependence on any one industry, especially finance, but regulating it out of existence isn't the way; removing political control of interest rates and the implicit guarantee of casino banking, coupled with a disembarkation of the Vichy State, it parasitic travellers and oxygen thieves, of the backs of manufacturing and business in general, complete with competitive low tax strategies to match, will even the odds a bit.

Might get a few folks in banking willing to focus on investments with long term returns rather than short term shovelling of cash.

markbaldy said...

It will just be another way of continuing with reckless lending that inflated the housing bubble up to 2007.
The FSA set up by Brown actively ENCOURAGED lending to anyone with a pulse - "soft touch regulation" was the mantra if I recall.
These new bodies...Different name, same objective.