Sir Howard Davies likes complications, a good thing since the UK’s financial super-regulator has a wider brief than any other regulator in the world, ranging from life insurance to the future of the London Stock Exchange to global financial issues.
Not least of the challenges facing him is to shepherd UK banks through an expected slowdown in growth – if not a recession – in the US. Although the Federal Reserve officially still insists there will be a soft landing, Alan Greenspan’s half-point rate cut in January raised expectations of a shrinking economy, causing the chairman of the Financial Services Authority to take note of some of the possible consequences.
