The Financial Services Authority (FSA) is carrying out significantly fewer regulatory visits to small firms in what some suggest may reflect its changing view about the risks they pose to the industry.
The number of formal FSA visits to small firms was down almost 90% in 2011/12 compared with the previous 12 months, figures obtained by a Freedom of Information (FoI) request show. In the most recent period - from July last year to June this year - the regulator made just 34 visits to small firms. This compared with 262 visits made in the same period a year before. The FSA did not explain the reason for the scale of the drop-off, though it said a project to replace Treating Customers Fairly (TCF) visits with a newer scheme called the Revised Approach to Small Firm Supervision (RASFS) ...
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