Does Britain need a financial regulator?


In 1997 Gordon Brown removed the so-called “self-regulatory” system for financial services under the Securities and Investment Board and created the Financial Services Authority (FSA). The name is all; in fact the “self-regulatory” system consisted of regulatory monopolies ultimately responsible to the Treasury which were a million miles away from market-based regulation which springs up whenever there is a need for it. We forget that before the creation of the “self-regulatory” system in 1986, regulation of investment markets was undertaken by private bodies – and that they were very successful.

IEA Pensions and Financial Regulation Fellow

Terry Arthur is a fellow of Pensions and Financial Regulation at the Institute of Economic Affairs and has written on this subject for a number of publications, working closely with Philip Booth, Editorial and Programme Director at the IEA.



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