The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has published its business plan for 2008/9.
The plan sets out the FSA’s programme of work for the year ahead to address the risks highlighted by the Financial Risk Outlook, published last week.
The document outlines specific FSA initiatives regarding heightened supervisory oversight in areas such as firms’ liquidity, adequacy of stress testing and their general operational preparedness for unexpected events.
“This Business Plan reflects the less benign economic environment we face and our determination to implement the lessons learnt from the events of the second half of 2007. I believe those lessons support our underlying regulatory philosophy, but nevertheless do require some special initiatives, which are incorporated in the Plan.
“Overall, there is much we at the FSA wish to accomplish and the Business Plan is correspondingly ambitious although the uncertainty in the marketplace means we must be flexible and ready to reprioritise our plans, shifting resources should the need arise.
“A successful regulator needs to be both nimble in its reaction to immediate events and determined in embedding, into its institutional memory, the lessons learnt from the past. I believe in executing this year’s business plan the FSA will demonstrate these characteristics,” says Hector Sants, CEO, FSA.
Alongside the initiatives mentioned above, the FSA will continue to focus on longstanding, deep-seated risks to its objectives with the area of greatest concern being the retail market. The Business Plan details the FSA’s continuing commitment to the Treating Customers Fairly programme (TCF), the Retail Distribution Review (RDR) and the Financial Capability Programme.
The FSA will also publish a report on firms’ systems and controls for managing the risk of consumers’ personal data being lost or stolen, with feedback to the industry on good practice and areas of improvement.
The FSA, together with the Bank of England, will continue work on the regulatory framework for liquidity, the publication of a Discussion Paper in December 2007 being the first step. Following the Financial Stability and