First meeting for the Bank’s new regulator
The Financial Policy Committee kicked off the first of its quarterly gatherings
BRITAIN’S new financial super-regulator met for the first time yesterday, led by a range of the Bank of England’s most senior officials.
The Financial Policy Committee (FPC) kicked off its role as a key adviser on developments in the City’s banks, created in the wake of the financial crisis.
“The FPC aims to deal with that problem by expanding the range of instruments available to the authorities,” explained the Bank’s Mervyn King this week.
The group will extend the aim of financial stability to the Bank of England’s remit, alongside price stability, already determined by the monetary policy committee (MPC).
It will work alongside the also new Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA), which is tasked with identifying problems at specific banks.
King said that the two groups would tackle the problem of banks being “too important to fail,” and thus a burden on UK taxpayers.
Internal members of the committee include governor Mervyn King, deputy governors Charles Bean and Paul Tucker, and Paul Fisher.
Andrew Haldane, the Bank’s executive director of financial stability, completes the internal section of the committee, along with former Bank of England official Alastair Clark.
The Bank’s contingent will be joined by American Donald Kohn, previously of the US Federal Reserve.
Adair Turner and Hector Sants from the Financial Services Authority (FSA) will also sit on the committee, as well as Michael Cohrs, formerly of Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank.
The committee’s first report will be published on 24 June, with the committee meeting four times a year thereafter.