14 Jan 2012

Who wants to submit to the degrading 'FSA approval process'?

News that Richard Moore, a very senior and experienced financial market executive that Lloyds TSB wants to hire as its global head of trading, 'has yet to receive FSA approval' before his appointment can be finalised illustrates the absurdity of recent regulatory 'innovations' in the UK.  It reminds very much of the old boy network that 'regulates' entry to British Universities where personal interviews are nothing but a smoke screen to weed out 'undesirable' applicants or favour those who appear 'politically correct. In a rational system of regulation one should assume that an executive with more than twenty years experience in senior and responsible roles should be more than suitable to take on a role such as head of trading at Lloyds TSB. If he has done something that contravened regulations or laws that would be a reason to prevent him from taking a senior appointment. But to give unaccountable bureaucrats - often with hardly any or much less practical business experience - the final say in an inquisitorial and secretive procedure will do nothing to help London its pre-eminent role as a global financial centre.

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