Davies welcomes Sandler

Howard Davies, Financial Services Authority chairman, declared that he was happy in general with Ron Sandler’s report on the UK savings industry. He noted that Mr Sandler’s belief in the need for a simplified regulatory approach for stakeholder products conformed to the FSA’s ideas in its depolarisation consultation paper (CP). Mr Davies was keen that regulation of the sales process should not deter saving and looked forward to working to support the government on the design of stakeholder products. “But,” he told the FSA’s Annual Meeting, “there is some difficult work still to be done on product features, to ensure that it is possible to free up the conduct of business regulations without the risk of widespread mis-selling.” Mr Sandler’s approach to with-profits funds reform was broadly in line with that of the regulator but his proposal that funds be rebuilt on a “charges less expenses” basis was “radical” and would require considerable thought, including an acceptable method for dealing with the ownership of estates in life funds.