A senior executive at The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has reportedly behaved in an “aggressive, unpleasant and bullying” way towards a creditor of a collapsed payment firm, according to The Times. A report on the Financial Regulators Complaints Commissioner’s (FRCC) website was reported in the press to have recommended that the regulator should apologise to the creditor of a collapsed payments firm, over the alleged conduct of its former director of enforcement and market oversight, Mark Steward. However, the report is no longer on the FRCC’s website (the FRCC has confirmed that they are reviewing the handling of the complaint). The removal of the report has sparked concerns of the independence of the FRCC’s review process on the one hand, and of the necessary protections for those involved in investigations on the other. Mr Steward maintains that he had not been contacted by the FCA or the FRCC and had not seen the complaint.  

This tension demonstrates the continuing challenges faced by the financial regulator in addressing past failures, yet the need for a clear process of review and objective scrutiny by the FRCC, which also needs to be wary of making procedural errors themselves.