Posts tagged as regulation

29 Nov 2008

The Retail Distribution Review: no solution for consumer confusion

A key decision the FSA needed to make, after consulting the financial services industry on its June proposals, was how it could help consumers be clear about the differences between independent financial advisers and product sales people. Its conclusions, in a feedback statement last week, will not help. The problem is that effective distribution to the mass market cannot be achieved by expensive free-standing advice businesses and needs big high street institutions with manufactured solutions.

read more Commentary by Stuart Fowler
26 Oct 2008

Credit card fraud – by bankers

In the Sunday Times today I read that banks are ‘exploiting obscure legal powers to seize the homes of thousands of people who cannot pay their credit card bills’. In fact, there is nothing new under the Consumer Credit Act about ‘charging orders’. What was new was the active encouragement by banks of crippling levels of debt and interest that looked a certain route to bad debts, that is unless the banks intended to use charging orders to recover the debt, when it finally got too much, from the value of the borrower’s home.

read more Commentary by Stuart Fowler
14 Oct 2008

A rational guide to cash management in politicised banking markets

There is not much in personal finance as emotionally charged as losing confidence in banks. This article brings together the various postings on the No Monkey Business blog at different stages of the banking crisis. Their purpose has been to be factual and rational, as a complement to instinct and habit and a counter to naked fear. As the crisis evolved, we have found ourselves changing our advice at different stages and adapting it to different people in different ways, but still rationally.

read more Insights by Stuart Fowler
10 Oct 2008

Descending into farce: Brown’s soft gurantee for all UK deposits

Since my piece below on systemic risk, PM Brown said in Paris that the Government would do whatever it had to in order to protect sterling deposits in British banks. Now Parliament knows… Following the logic I spelt out in that piece, if you believe the British Government can and will prevent loss of any uninsured deposits in UK banks, the implication is that you should rate banks as safer than money market funds since the latter also invest in commercial paper which is not guranteed and rises in risk as lending to companies dries up. But you might just want to wait to see what Parliament thinks before you trust this particular promise made on your behalf without debate.

read more Commentary by Stuart Fowler
05 Oct 2008

Heading for a Europe-wide government guarantee: how do we ensure legitimacy?

Since my post below, I see Angela Merkel has provided an explicy guarantee of 100% of deposits in German banks and word is the Westminster Parliament will be presented with a similar proposal next week. When governments have to guarantee the deposits of the entire banking system as the price of freeing up lending both between banks and to companies and households, we might as well admit we have a failure of the banking system.

read more Commentary by Stuart Fowler
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