RBS should “accept failings” say FCA
1st November 2017
Andrew Bailey, boss for the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has criticised the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) for not accepting the mistakes and mistreatment that were made within its controversial GRB unit.
The financial regulator published their findings from an investigation into the former RBS subsidiary last week, and concluded that while customers were mistreated they were not forced to go bust. The bank has however refused to accept these findings and Bailey calls their attitude “unfortunate”.
Andrew Bailey has been criticised by the Treasury committee for the delay in getting the investigation published, but he blamed RBS and consultancy firm Promontory’s reluctance to arrange a “meeting of the minds” as reason for the delay in the report.
RBS chief executive Ross McEwan has rejected a number of the criticisms made of the bank in the review. In a letter to committee chair Nicky Morgan he said that the bank “was not guilty” of serious conduct failings, and any financial distress was not caused by the bank’s actions.
Nonetheless, Ms Morgan said on Tuesday that all MPs on the Treasury Select Committee had constituents who had been affected by RBS’s malpractice. Furthermore, these small business customers have been waiting up to a decade for any compensation.
After pressure from victims and their MPs, the FCA last week finally released a summary of the bank’s conduct. This was almost a year after the regulator had reached its initial conclusions about what happened at the bank between 2008 and 2013.
The Treasury committee criticised this delay, and Ms Morgan said she failed to understand how it had taken the regulator a year to summarise a 300-page document into 39 pages.
In an effort to defend the regulator and its staff, FCA chairman John Griffith-Jones told the committee that the FCA had a duty to be fair to all people, including those who work for RBS, as well as the victims.
This was supported by Bailey, who claimed the fierce opposition to the report by RBS, led FCA to put added effort in their diligence so they could be satisfied the report was accurate.
He concluded: “There is a very broad range of views on this, from widespread bad practice up to … a conspiracy. The report is more in the former camp. Obviously the firm is in a different place.”
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