City regulator faces grilling on Treasury’s growth agenda March 25, 2025 The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) was grilled by the Treasury Committee on Tuesday after it unveiled its new five-year strategy. Members of the committee questioned the gap between the government’s growth agenda and how the FCA was prepared to deregulate. Chair of the Treasury Committee Dame Meg Hillier, said the regulator’s structure led to it [...]
Payments watchdog bosses given hours to tell staff of FCA merger March 12, 2025 Payment Systems Regulator top brass did not know the watchdog was definitely being merged into the Financial Conduct Authority until just hours before it became public and used media leaks to prepare their response for the sweeping change, the regulator’s interim boss has said. Speaking at a Treasury Committee hearing less than 24 hours after [...]
Natwest, Barclays, HSBC lead months worth of online banking outages March 6, 2025 Nine of the UK’s biggest banks and building societies were down for over 803 hours – the equivalent of 33 days – over the last two years. Fresh data from the Treasury Committee shows a minimum of 158 IT failure incidents at banks had affected millions of consumers in the period between January 2023 and [...]
Who is the Lifetime ISA for? February 28, 2025 Lifetime ISAs have been the focus of policymakers’ considerations as they consider how to reform and simplify the UK’s savings landscape. In January, the Treasury Committee called for evidence from industry on whether the Lifetime ISA remains fit for purpose nine years after its creation. It has asked how the product could be reformed or [...]
Half of UK financial firms lack AI strategy, despite feeling ‘AI-ready’ February 26, 2025 There is a significant gap between confidence and action in artificial intelligence (AI) adoption across the UK financial sector, a new report has found. Professional services firm Forvis Mazars‘ report revealed that while all surveyed C-suite executives claim to be “AI-ready”, only 43 per cent of firms have a well-developed AI strategy. Meanwhile, just over [...]
Goldman Sachs expects tax hikes of ‘at least’ £20bn in Reeves budget September 10, 2024 Many potential tax reforms have faced criticism for their potential unintended consequences.
Bernanke: Inflation was ‘unavoidable’ but the Bank of England needs to change May 15, 2024 The surge in inflation seen over the past few years was "unavoidable," Ben Bernanke said today, as he outlined ways in which the Bank of England could navigate future uncertainty.
Government rejects bid to ban NDAs in all harassment cases after sexism in the City probe May 14, 2024 The government has refused a recommendation from an influential group of MPs to ban the use of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) in all harassment cases, following its probe into sexism in the financial services sector.