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<p>This Government has taken a number of major steps to strengthen monitoring and
regulation of the banking sector.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The Financial Services
Act 2012 put in place two new, properly focussed financial regulators, the Prudential
Regulation Authority (PRA) - a subsidiary of the Bank of England - the Financial Conduct
Authority (FCA), as part of a new approach to financial regulation. The new regulators
started work on 1 April 2013.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The Government’s new approach
to financial regulation enables the PRA to concentrate on monitoring the health of
UK banks to ensure that they are prudently and competently managed and to reduce the
risk that the practices of UK banks will lead to serious financial failure. At the
same time, the FCA can concentrate on monitoring the practices of UK banks and other
financial services businesses in their dealing with ordinary retail customers and
in wholesale financial markets, to reduce the risk that the practices in the banking
sector are detrimental to consumers or competition, or threaten the integrity of financial
markets.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>On 12 June 2014, the Government announced the
Fair and Effective Markets Review, which is a joint review by HM Treasury, the Bank
of England, and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) into the way wholesale financial
markets operate. The Government is determined to take action to help restore trust
and integrity and to ensure that the highest standards are expected of those who operate
in these markets. It is important that this is done in a way that preserves the UK’s
position as the global financial centre for many of these markets. The Review published
its consultation document “How fair and effective are the fixed income, foreign exchange
and commodities markets?” on 27 October, and the Government looks forward to the review’s
final recommendations in June 2015.</p><p> </p>
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