City regulators have been urged to work more constructively with businesses to ease compliance costs, experts have said amid plans for major regulatory reform by the government.
Regulators such as the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Prudential Regulatory Authority (PRA) were frequently too slow to respond to messages from businesses and were often deliberately vague in their requests, some argued, leading to unnecessary spend on legal and consultancy fees to interpret their communication.
“The authorisation process [with regulators] takes ages,” one former regulator said.
“When I was there, if I wanted a firm to do something, I wouldn’t be very clear initially – I’d say it in a very wooly way.
“And then, when I was a consultant, I would get paid money to interpret a letter from the PRA because it was so unclear.
“You often have to wait for at least three letters before the regulator says ‘this is what I want you to do and when you have to do it.”
The remarks were made as part of a roundtable discussion with financial experts on the subject of Labour’s plan for regulatory reform and whether they were welcomed by the City.
The roundtable was chaired by City AM and hosted by workspace company Argyll at their premier City office location on 1 Cornhill, and featured senior members of banks, insurance firms, economists, consumer groups and regulatory experts.
Participants took part in the discussion under Chatham House rules, allowing City AM to report on the meeting without attribution to specific individuals.
