FCA should be 'strangled at birth', says think tank

Nicola Brittain
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The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) will not be any different from the Financial Services Authority (FSA) and should be "strangled at birth" before regulators do any more damage, according to the head of economics think tank the Adam Smith Institute.

Eamonn Butler launched a vituperative attack on the regulator at the True Potential Conference in Birmingham, in which he said the FCA, like its predecessor, will have no understanding of its own purpose or the power of markets. He argued that the frenzy to 'bash bankers' had led to the regulator focusing on the wrong thing - people and processes - when it should have been more intent on making financial products less cumbersome. He made a number of criticisms of the FSA, which he described as 'hopeless' and said that the FCA's 50-page document 'The Approach To Regulation' indicates i...

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