FCA begins consultation over its future 'mission'

The Financial Conduct Authority said it will talk to stakeholders, including financial institutions, trade lobbying bodies and consumer groups to establish a strategic "mission" for the regulator.

Chief executive Andrew Bailey said: “Establishing and embedding a clear mission for the FCA is critical to our success, both as a regulator and to UK financial services as a whole. Our mission will set out a framework within which we prioritise our work, ensuring we focus our resources in the right places. This will improve accountability and transparency of how and why we make the choices that we do."

Bailey said the success of the mission depended on a full consultation process: "We want this to be a very open process. Out of it, we hope that we can set out a clear path ahead for financial conduct regulation in the UK.”

Consumer groups have previously accused the FCA of not doing enough to regulate payment protection insurance and interest-rate hedging products being sold.

The consultation will include seeking suggestions for a new handbook, how to protecting consumers as they are increasingly expected to take responsibility for their own financial decisions and whether the FCA should prioritise protecting vulnerable consumers and how.

It will address what the FCA’s role should be in customer redress schemes, what it should do when it intervenes and the scope of regulation.

While the process with also assess the interaction between regulation and public policy and look at clarity regarding competition, supervision and enforcement.

Andrew Tyrie MP, Chairman of parliament's treasury committee, said at first glance the consultation "looks like a robust attempt to give the FCA a much clearer sense of direction. It also attempts to identify what the FCA cannot reasonably be expected to do."

He said both aspects were needed, along with greater transparency about its decisions and choice of priorities.

“The FCA now has a responsibility to do much better than their predecessor regulator, the FSA. And Parliament has a responsibility not to make the regulator’s job impossible by imposing unreasonably heavy demands on it.”