The FCA and PRA - better together or apart?

Liz Truss's brief and turbulent reign as Prime Minister raised the prospect of the UK's financial conduct, prudential and payment systems regulators being amalgamated into one body - prompting alarm as well as some serious 2000s déj? vu. Adam Samuel ponders the merits of the notion.

Adam SamuelBA LLM DipPFS MCISI FCIArb Certs CII (MP&ER) Barrister and Attorney may be contacted atadamsamuel@aol.com.For links to where you can buy the second edition of 'Consumer Financial Services Complaints and Compensation', see www.adamsamuel.com.writing/.

During the first 2022 Conservative Party leadership contest, the winner, Liz Truss, suggested the reunification of the Prudential Regulation Authority and the Financial Conduct Authority. It had no effect on her at least temporarily successful campaign. Her subsequent resignation may have buried the idea in any event. However, the discussion concerned brought back some peculiar memories of the 2010 decision to split the Financial Services Authority into the PRA and FCA and the 1997 decision that created the FSA. Perhaps more importantly, it raised general issues about the effectiveness of the PRA as part of the Bank of England as well as the value of dual regulation.