Briault walks the plank at Financial Services Authority.

Managing director Clive Briault has walked the plank at the UK regulatory body
Financial Services Authority (FSA) following the Northern Rock debacle according
to Money Marketing. However, Mr Briault was the prime mover of the retail distribution review, which has yet to be finished. He leaves with a contractual
£380,000.

Elsewhere, I read that the actual FSA staff supervising the UK mortgage bank were insurance rather than banking experts. The organisation's internal report has pointed to failings in the supervision of Northern Rock but I think the main structural flaw was the tripartite responsibility of the FSA, the Bank of England and the Treasury.

Bank of England governor Mervyn King still seems to want to punish banks for their mistakes but he lost the opportunity to do that some time ago. In a perfect world
the banks' shareholders would lose their shirts for their poor lending decisions
but this would be too damaging for all concerned.

It is official FSA can't regulate banks.

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has admitted regulatory failings over the UK
mortgage bank Northern Rock. Apparently, the FSA thought that the Bank of England would do more to support banks, when interbank lending froze up during the summer of
2007.

The small fry have been toasted with five of the seven member team directly supervising Northern Rock leaving. However, other main factors were the dithering of the UK Treasury and the Bank of England governor worrying about moral hazard.

Life companies will struggle with platforms - Skandia.

Money Marketing cites Skandia UK chief executive Brett Williams, who says that life companies will struggle with platforms. For instance, Williams believes that companies such as Standard Life will find it hard to achieve the right scale.
The Skandia UK chief executive comments there is fierce competition in the
market as shown by Friend's Provident backing down from its launch and by problems faced by Norwich Union's Lifetime.