FORMER SNP MP George Kerevan has offered to become the next head of the Financial Conduct Authority and Payments Service Regulator and work for just his ordinary expenses.
The MP for East Lothian from 2015 until this year’s snap election, Kerevan is an economist and journalist by profession, but admits in his letter of application – believed to be the first received by the FCA – that he “sits outside the banking and City financial world.”
He is a former member of the Treasury Committee, however, and his application to replace John Griffith-Jones, who will step down next spring, is deadly serious and includes the offer not to take Griffith-Jones’s salary of £193,000 a year.
In his application, Kerevan writes: “The Financial Conduct Authority faces a major crisis of public confidence. Rightly or wrongly, significant sections of the small business community doubt the FCA’s ability to provide them with redress against historic and ongoing mis-selling or inappropriate behaviour by large banks.
“Elected politicians of all parties are concerned by the FCA’s apparent inability to promote strong competition in the lending sector; to end the de facto oligopoly of the big high-street retail banks; to ensure the provision of affordable, inclusive financial services for the entire population, especially those on low incomes; to maintain the agency’s independence from the Executive, as indicated by the removal by Chancellor Osborne of the FCA chief executive, Martin Wheatley, in 2015; and to police effectively the predatory behaviour of so-called ‘distressed investors’ such as Cerberus, who buy debt books cheaply from retail banks and then asset strip with scant regard for human or economic consequences.”
Kerevan adds that “the widespread lack of confidence felt in the FCA is rooted precisely in the appointment of key board representatives from within the ‘magic circle’ of the City and Oxbridge. My candidature is based on breaking with this practice.”
He says he will make the FCA a “consumer champion” writing: “The Board determines strategy and oversees practice. As chair, the FCA will see itself primarily as the consumer’s champion – a view explicitly rejected by the current chair, when questioned by myself. I will also emphasise the FCA’s remit to promote competition vigorously in all financial markets – a move made even more necessary by the prospect of Brexit. I will challenge the management team to benchmark the competition objective by ending the dominant oligopoly in UK retail banking.
“With the Senior Managers and Certification Regime, the FCA now has an important tool with which to enforce personal as well as corporate responsibility. The Regime should and must use its new powers effectively.”
In a clear message to the RBS group over the Global Restructuring Group controversy, he adds: “The FCA will have to work harder to prove it is a transparent organisation.
“As chair, I will seek board approval to publish in full the so-called skilled persons’ report on the RBS GRG affair, commissioned by the FCA. I will ensure that in general FCA investigative reports are published timeously and without the unconscionable delay that accompanied the review of the failure of HBOS.”
The FCA confirmed last night that Kerevan’s letter of application would receive the same consideration as any other applications.
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