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Academics: UK FPC must have US reps

Monday 20 June 2011 - by Andrew Hickley

The new UK Financial Policy Committee has been criticised for a lack of external representation which could lead it to suffer from group think.

Four academics have voiced a number of concerns with the regulatory authority including a lack of representatives from the US, while speaking in front of the Parliamentary Treasury Select Committee on Monday.

The UK's FPC, which has already been created in its interim form, aims to identify, monitor and take action to remove systemic risks in order to protect the resilience of the UK financial system.

However, the committee's will be made up of six members who currently work at the Bank of England, with just four members being brought in as external members.

"There are not enough external members, and if the interim FPC is an indicator of the line-up we will need, we probably have the wrong externals," Dr Andrew Hilton, director of the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation, told the TSC.


"We need an American regulator and an American investment banker," he added, commenting that the skillset of the 'outsiders' would not be able to provide a varied enough critique on the build-up of systemic risk.

The interim FPC has been set up in anticipation of new regulation formally establishing it.

In its current form it is chaired by Bank of England governor Mervyn King, who is joined by BoE deputy governor for financial stability, Paul Tucker, BoE deputy governor for monetary policy Charlie Bean, future chief executive of the Prudential Regulation Authority Hector Sants, chairman of the FSA Adair Turner, the BoE executive director for financial stability Andy Haldane, and BoE executive director for markets Paul Fisher.

Joining the committee externally are former adviser to the BoE governor, Alastair Clark, former co-head of corporate and investment banking at Deutsche Bank, Michael Cohrs and former vice chairman of the US Federal Reserve, Donald Kohn. Former director general at the Confederation of British Industry Sir Richard Lambert had originally agreed to sit on the committee, though he has since decided to walk away from this role.


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