Jon Pain to leave FSA

The FSA needs to look at itself closely. Areas of poor or questionable advice tend not to come from truely IFA's but rather from in Branch (Bank and Building Society) Advisers and retained IFA's.

Banking and Credit Card Firms need looking at very closely as regards their charging structure, including interest charges.

Surely the day has now come for a statutory upper limit on Interest ie Base rate plus a certain percentage in order to prevent less than prudent lending by both banks and credit card Companies, as well, of course, as going some little way to correcting the huge amount of unsecured and impaired debt problems we are currently experiencing.

It might also go some way towards reducing some of the obscene profit figures we see

To Mr Anonymous.

There is a certain,sure method by which extortionate credit card fees and loan interest could be limited by regulation.If IFAs were to become heavily involved in that market(I am not advocating this ,by the way), overnight the FSA would introduce a new raft of regulatory powers requiring full disclosure of charges ,provenence of money,KYC,genuine ability to repay, etc etc.

The facts are that it easier to borrow than to save,and the IFAs` sin is to be in competition with the banks at a time when those same banks are looking to rebuild their balance sheets through financial services as they find the provision of high street clearing services uneconomical.The regulator colludes with this.

Can't say I'm disappointed at his departure. He left his previous employer, C&G, with a tarnished reputation and his decision to exit right from the FSA just as the going gets tough highlights the shallowness of the man, a trait evident in many other senior FSA figures who view their FSA roles as just another notch on their CV's, stepping stones, before moving on.

This is a major proble at the FSA. There is a lack of real financial services knowledge at the helm. Too many journeymen see the FSA as a 3-5 year career path. London is not awash with seasoned retail financial services expertise. Count the number of major life and pension players with head offices in London compared with say Glasgow, Edinburgh or Bristol?! I believe it is time the Retail Financial Services arm of the FSA relocates to Glasgow, Edinburgh , Birmingham or even Bristol where the pool of industry experience if far greater and the associated operating costs would be far less. I suspect the decisions on future regulation would also be far more balanced for the benefit of the industry and consumers in general and less likley to be used as a political football when it suits

Goodbye Mr Pain, you won't be missed as I can't actually recall anything positive you did whilst at the FSA that improved the quality of advice the public receives from banks and building societies.