I’m delighted to see that the Financial Service Authority (FSA) is taking its role as financial watchdog and defender of the public seriously.
For decades, laid-back regulation and feeble self-regulating codes of conduct allowed financial firms to ride roughshod over their customers’ rights. Thanks to this lack of regulation, commission-hungry financial salespeople were allowed to run riot, leading to major mis-selling scandals involving, for example, mortgage endowments, personal pensions, free-standing additional voluntary contributions, split-capital investment trusts, high-income precipice bonds, home-income plans, maximum investment plans (ten-year savings plans) — the list goes on and on!…