Transparency Task Force demonstrators marched on the Houses of Parliament yesterday, calling for the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to be overhauled or replaced and accusing it of regulatory shortcomings that have resulted in pension scams.
SNP MP Martyn Day, financial adviser Steven Middleton and former City traders were amongst those in a Transparency Task Force rally that began at the Royal Courts of Justice and ended at the Houses of Parliament, stopping at the Treasury and 10 Downing Street. Pension scam victims and a former Barclays bank trader who claims he was scapegoated when he was jailed for conspiracy to defraud also joined in the protest.
Attendees held banners and placards demanding a regulator ‘that isn’t prone to chronic and catastrophic regulatory failure, that doesn’t force innocent firms to pay an exorbitant regulatory failure tax’.
Speaking at the event, Transparency Task Force founder Andy Agathangelou said: “The overall purpose of the rally for better financial regulation is to draw attention to the simple fact that too many members of the public are losing out as a direct consequence of chronic and catastrophic regulatory failure. To be more specific, people such as pension scam victims.
“There is a great long list of individuals who’ve lost quite literally life-changing sums of money as a direct consequence of having been scammed. They’ve been really let down by the financial regulators, the FCA has an objective which is to provide an appropriate degree of consumer protection.
“The transparency task force has amassed a great deal of evidence over the last 5 years that shows that the Financial Conduct Authority has been failing miserably to carry out those particular responsibilities.
“What we’re doing is we’re inviting the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, [economic secretary to the Treasury] John Glen, the leaders of the Scottish National Party, the Liberal Democrats, the Green Party, the Labour Party all to meet with us so that we can share with them the evidence that we’ve gathered over the years and they can come to their own conclusions about whether we are right, that there really has been a chronic and catastrophic failure.”
He added: “All regulatory firms need to contribute to the FSCS and many of the regulatory firms are really annoyed that they have to pay a massive FSCS levy. The amount of the levy is largely defined by how many mishaps the FCA experience. So, the worse the regulation, the more criminals and scammers get away with things, the more the FCA have to payout compensation to the victims and therefore the more the regulatory firms have to pay the FSCS levy. That is why we refer to the FSCS levy as a regulatory failure tax.”