Suitability: reaction from the FSA meeting

As those who were present will have heard, at the FSA’s Annual Public Meeting this morning, Margaret Cole showed that she was unable to answer a straight forward question about Suitability. When I asked whether variations in regulatory standards in different countries should be taken into account when making the Suitability judgement, she would only say that FCA expected to be ‘compatible with Europe’ and therefore the issue should not arise. As the FSA has made it quite clear that FCA may well be taking a much more robust approach than other regulators, particularly in relation to Product Intervention, that was a  pretty unhelpful answer. If the FSA wants to shine the spot light on Suitability and to take firms to task for failures, it will need to be clear about what is expected.