I arranged a couple of meetings in London for yesterday and realising I had the morning free, I volunteered to attend an event being organised by an outfit called PanaceaIFA. The topic being the RDR (which you probably will not have heard of). The RDR is the next Big Idea from the Failed FSA as to how retail financial service will be delivered and paid for.
There was a panel of five 'industry experts':
Karen Barrett. Chief Exec of Unbiased.co.uk
Richard Hobbs. Head of Lansons Regulatory Consulting
Nick Cann. Chief Executive of the Institute of Financial Planning
Gill Cardy. MD of IFA Centre
Garry Heath. Noted 'character'. And a 'Good Bloke' whom I have known for some time.
They all gave a five minute chat of what they thought of the RDR and how it would affect us and what we could do.
Then they asked for questions.
I put my hand up. "Would the members of the panel, who think that the State should regulate financial services please raise their hands?"
Nick and Karen sort of half put up their hands then quickly brought them down again. Gill asked me 'Can you explain what you mean by that question"? (!).
"It's very simple, do you think that the State should regulate financial services?"
She replied by going off on a long statement about 'capitalism' and how it doesn't work [some/most] of the time.
Then Richard pops up.
"Well, if you mean that we should have self-regulation that has clearly failed. And when you get 'market failure'....look, supposing you turned off all the traffic lights there'd be chaos right?
Me. "Er no. Since my previous career was a highway engineer I can categorically state that turning off traffic lights is excellent for traffic flow and safety. So, I'll ask again. Do you think that the state should regulate financial services?"
More pointless dissembling and rambling but no justifications and no real answers. The Lansons' blokey -Richard Hobbs - (read his CV here under our people - you'll get the picture) got off on 'market failure'; 'consumer detriment' and all the other weasel words loved by the bureaucrats.
More general dissembling and the Chairmen quickly selected another question.
I mean. Tell me. We are doomed aren't we? I don't mean just FS, but all of us? When 'industry figures' cannot feel confident in regulating themselves what the Hell hope is there?
(N.B. Garry likened Hector Sants to a Rumanian Dictator as he has taken to announcing FSA policy by way of 'speeches' made at whatever do he has wangled an invite to. Garry and I lunched together after this farrago and cried in our beer).
Claptrap
11 hours ago
6 comments:
Well, it certainly makes you realise how the other half - the parasitic bureaucracy half - live. Some years ago I remember the FSA (I think) confidently announcing that there would be more failures in financial services. So I wondered why I was having to pay for masses of meaningless bumf with every purchase of an ISA or whatever.
The four clocks in the railway station scene on the Lansons' site reminded me of an incident years ago in pre Celtic Tiger days at Amiens Street Station, Dublin. There were two clocks showing different times. My father pointed it out to a porter. "What would be the point of having two, if they both tell you the same time?" was the reply.
Regulation, what a splendid growth industry, because for every one civil servant there are two people in the nominally private sector helping real businesses deal with it all. And I should know.
It seems that bureaucrats forget that the outcome is more important than the process (regulation).
http://www.clickorlando.com/news/Nurse-refuses-student-inhaler-during-asthma-attack/-/1637132/13560430/-/wm13uaz/-/index.html
SB it isn't, for them.
Lansons looks like they are making a valiant contribution to the ever-growing bullshit industry.
As for regulation, what about the EU?
Physiocrat. You should have heard North on the EU. His knowledge is encyclopeadic - and utterly pointless - as I was prevented by time and politeness from telling him. I regret that latter characteristic now.
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