After 25 years of regulation are consumers better protected?

While it may not be an occasion for hanging out the bunting, we will shortly be reaching a significant anniversary in financial services regulation. On 29 April this year it will be 25 years since the original Financial Services Act came into effect, replacing ad hoc and largely unenforced industry codes of practice with formal statute based regulation. So what has changed in the intervening 25 years? Are consumers better protected now than they were? In many respects regulation has come full circle in that time. Back in 1988 when statutory regulation was introduced, monitoring of ...