Farewell to the City’s stroppy regulator: a modest sop for the new bank tax

A City insider at last month’s Mansion House dinner told me the Financial Conduct Authority had become ‘a bit of an embarrassment’ — or rather, that was my bowdlerisation of what he actually whispered. So it comes as no surprise that FCA chief executive Martin Wheatley has resigned, having been told by the Chancellor that his contract would not be renewed. A former London Stock Exchange director and Hong Kong securities regulator, Wheatley has a knack of making enemies: Hong Kong investors, unhappy with his handling of alleged misselling of Lehman Brothers ‘minibonds’, once burned a funeral effigy of him outside his office.

London bankers didn’t quite go that far, but resented his stroppiness and the fact that he had never been a practitioner in their sector. Bank of England and Treasury officials seem to have found him an uncomfortable (not to mention gaffe-prone) colleague — a reminder of their earlier dysfunctional relationship with the Financial Services Authority, from which the FCA descends.