FSA slaps ex-HBOS banker with £500,000 fine and lifetime ban
A FORMER senior HBOS banker has been hit with a record fine from the Financial Services Authority (FSA), the regulator revealed yesterday. It also banned him from the industry for life.
Peter Cummings, former head of corporate lending at HBOS, will pay £500,000 for failure to exercise due diligence and reasonable care.
“Despite being aware of the weaknesses in his division and growing problems in the economy, Cummings presided over a culture of aggressive growth without the controls in place to manage the risks associated with that strategy,” said Tracey McDermott at the FSA.
But Cummings hit back at the regulators, saying he was being made a scapegoat for a company-wide, even worldwide crash.
“For the past three and a half years I have been singled out and subjected to an extraordinary Orwellian process by an organisation that acts as lawmaker, judge, jury appeal court and executioner,” he said in a statement yesterday, adding: “The fact that I am the only individual from HBOS to face investigation defies comprehension.”