UK: financial regulation - early intervention and the Financial Conduct Authority

In a speech delivered yesterday, Tracey McDermott, the acting director of the Enforcement and Financial Crime Division at the Financial Services Authority, gave some examples of how the new Financial Conduct Authority would exercise its early intervention powers: see here. More specifically, she stated:

Early intervention can take many different forms. The area which has attracted most attention – and which is likely to be the most controversial – is the proposed power for the FCA to ban products where we consider the risk of mis-selling those products significantly outweighs any benefit. We will, of course, also be able to prevent individual firms from selling products that seem perfectly useful, where that firm’s sales processes look likely to lead to significant mis-selling. But it may also include a willingness to take action – supervisory or enforcement – earlier in the cycle. So you might expect to see the FCA taking action, including Enforcement action, where our judgement is that a particular aspect of the firm’s business model – its product selection, its remuneration practices, its training or recruitment, for instance – is likely to give rise to poor consumer outcomes. We won’t wait to see if those outcomes occur".