Today's FT carried the heading 'FSA chief seeks new consumer safeguards'. The pink newspaper is always worth a look but never more so than when it talks 'consumer protection' and I was certainly drawn to its headline this morning. I'm sure Lord Turner's remarks and timely interest in consumer protection is not unconnected with the anticipated relocation of consumer credit regulation from the OFT to the new FSA, Financial Services Authority, successor body (or one of them) the Consumer Protection and Markets Authority, CPMA.
The tried and trusted Consumer Credit Act looks likely to give way to a new Financial Services Act. Canary Wharf has never been what I would call close to front line consumers and nor to front line trading standards. In the new world of the CPMA and the already up and running Consumer Financial Education Board I very much hope that those bodies and people can relate to ordinary consumers and even trading standards officers. The lifts in Canary Wharf can quickly get you down from a great height to ground level. That is where consumer credit controls and enforcement against the terror of loan sharks have to be real.
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