Financial watchdog says MPs' criticism 'not fair'

The brag of the UK's fiscal watchdog has said disapproval from MPs that it has failed to betterment aft years of ungraded is "not fair".

Nikhil Rathi, main enforcement of the Financial Conduct Authority, said it is "tackling fiscal crime... connected a standard that has ne'er been done earlier successful the UK".

He was responding to a study from a cross-party radical of MPs which said the FCA was "incompetent" and that its civilization has "got worse alternatively than better".

It besides accused the FCA of failing to decently analyse the banks and different fiscal organisations it regulates, suggesting it whitethorn beryllium excessively adjacent to them.

The study published connected Tuesday came successful the aftermath of backlash against the FCA's handling of the Neil Woodford concern scandal and different controversies such arsenic its debanking report.

It referenced years of akin disapproval from different reports, including a 2016 insubstantial from the New City Agenda which said determination was "a heavy seated civilization of box-ticking" astatine the FCA.

The study besides deed backmost against the proposition that the FCA had changed.

"It is imperative the scholar doesn’t autumn into the trap of reasoning that the FCA... has already resolved the agelong database of problems the grounds that has been painstakingly gathered shows it has, due to the fact that it hasn’t," the study said.

However, successful an interrogation with BBC Radio 4's Money Box show, Mr Rathi defended the FCA against these claims and argued the regulator had improved.

"We volition ever enactment focused connected improving our operational performance, but I don't deliberation it would beryllium just to characterise the presumption arsenic thing has happened," helium said.

He added that the FCA is making "record numbers of fiscal transgression prosecutions" and that it is "one of the astir evolved user extortion regimes successful the world".

The study goes connected to authorities that the FCA whitethorn person been "captured", meaning it is excessively aligned with banks and different fiscal organisations to enactment against them.

It argues determination are "unmanaged conflicts of interest" wrong the FCA due to the fact that of its relation some to support consumers and beforehand economical growth.

It suggested the watchdog should beryllium stripped backmost to a regulator purely focused connected user wellbeing - leaving the authorities to absorption connected economical growth.

It besides suggested that the FCA's enactment should beryllium replaced "if necessary", calling its existent leaders "opaque and unaccountable".

Mr Rathi said the contented of maturation versus user extortion "requires a debate", but that Chancellor Rachel Reeves was pushing it to prosecute growth.

He accepted that promoting maturation tin mean expanding risks for consumers, pointing to changes it made to let much companies to database successful the UK, specified arsenic connected the London Stock Exchange.

"We were precise transparent each the mode done that treatment implicit the erstwhile 18 months that this would bring much hazard into the system, [but] it was judged that this was necessary," helium said.

"That does mean that implicit clip a fewer much things volition spell wrong, but the hazard appetite successful the system needed to set to enactment the maturation that the system needs."

On the contented of accountability, Mr Rathi said the FCA appears earlier Parliament and prime committees and publishes much information than "any different regulator successful the world".

A Treasury spokesperson told the BBC: "Many of the issues explored successful the study person been extensively reviewed, and arsenic a effect the FCA has made a fig of changes."