Financial Services Trade Associations Review puts forward revised options
Revised options for improving representation of the banking industry have been put forward by the Financial Services Trade Associations Review.
Building on proposals from a consultation paper published earlier in the year, the review team has outlined four options. These range from greater co-ordination among existing trade associations but without any structural change, to a full merger of more than a dozen trade associations into a single body.
The team’s initial view is that the two middle options, involving some degree of integration of existing trade bodies, appear to offer the greatest benefit. They would involve integrating up to nine existing trade bodies to form an organisation focused mainly on retail and commercial banking. Under these options the wealth and asset management trade associations would remain separate, but with enhanced coordination.
Review chairman Ed Richards said: “Over the past 10 weeks we’ve spoken to a large number of people about these questions and have set out the feedback we have received. There are four credible revised options that we propose, although our initial view is that, on balance, the options involving some integration look the most attractive.
“We will subject this view to the responses we receive in this phase of the review.”
The review was launched last year by nine major UK retail banks and a building society to ensure that the existing bodies were suitable to represent the changing UK financial services industry. Initial proposals for combining the main banking, consumer finance and wealth management trade associations into a single body were put forward by a working group in a consultation paper published in January.
The revised proposals have involved wider consultation across the sector. They have also been drawn up after consultation with policy-makers, regulators and other stakeholders, who shared the industry view that there were opportunities to strengthen the voice of the industry and the quality of policy engagement.
The review’s report is available at www.tradeassociationsreview.com.
