Financial Regulatory Forum

– The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own –

By Peter Thal Larsen

LONDON, March 25 (Reuters Breakingviews) – The British government may have stopped short of regulating bank pay. But it is sparing no effort in encouraging others to rein in excess bonuses. Non-executive directors have already been handed a checklist for scrutinising pay. Now ministers want shareholders to make their voices heard as well.

During the boom, investors occasionally grumbled about pay for executive directors. But they almost never worried about remuneration of bankers below board level. They were free to earn as much as they could get away with.

Ministers want those pay packages to become more controversial. Draft regulations published earlier in March will force banks to disclose the number of employees earning more than half a million pounds. These “executive remuneration reports” will be submitted to shareholders for approval.

Now Paul Myners, the UK’s City minister, has suggested giving shareholders the power to vote on pay packages before they are approved. This seems sensible: it would allow investors to influence bonuses before they were awarded, rather than registering an empty protest afterwards.

By Matt Falloon

LONDON, March 8 (Reuters) – Britain wants to remove the implicit taxpayer subsidy to banks but must not be left alone in clamping down on the financial sector, financial services minister Paul Myners said on Monday.

In a speech to bankers in London, Myners said there was a risk that high-flying financiers had not learned their lesson from the financial crisis and stringent reforms were needed to change behaviour.

Policymakers are increasingly mindful that improving economic conditions across the world may diminish the appetite to overhaul the financial system following the credit crisis.

By Huw Jones

LONDON, Feb 2 (Reuters) – Banks should not be forced to shift privately-negotiated derivatives transactions onto exchanges, Britain’s Financial Services Minister, Paul Myners, said on Tuesday.

“We do not see the need for mandating trading of standardised derivatives on organised trading platforms,” Myners told a committee of parliament’s upper chamber.

The G20 group of countries agreed last year that standardised over-the-counter derivatives should be centrally cleared and, where appropriate, traded on an exchange or other type of electronic platform.

LONDON, Jan 18 (Reuters) – Britain’s financial services minister Paul Myners said on Monday he wanted to promote a global debate on how to protect taxpayers from future investment bank failures and warned banks against paying big bonuses.

Myners will host a meeting of representatives from the G7, the World Bank and the IMF in London on January 25 during which an American-style insurance levy on financial institutions will be discussed in an attempt to avoid costly bailouts in the event of another crisis.

“We want to promote a global debate about this,” he told BBC radio.

“Gordon Brown made a very good speech at the G20 finance ministers’ meeting in St Andrews in November which we then followed up in the Treasury with a publication of a document setting out a number of ways in which the implicit guarantee could be internalised by the banks through a transaction tax, or through some form of deposit levy.”

LONDON, Nov 17 (Reuters) – Britain’s government has batted away complaints from three top brokerages about “bullying” and unfair competition by bailed-out lenders, telling them to make a virtue of their independence or seek help from the consumer watchdog.

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   By Huw Jones
LONDON, Nov 4 (Reuters) – Britain said on Wednesday it expects a satisfactory deal on setting up new European Union watchdogs for banks even though a key decision by the bloc’s finance ministers is less than a month away.

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By Matt Falloon and Steve Slater
LONDON, Oct 14 (Reuters) – Major foreign investment banks operating in London have agreed to obey G20 and Financial Services Authority rules on remuneration, starting with payments for performance this year, the Treasury said on Wednesday.

Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, UBS, Credit Suisse, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan signed up to the commitment after a meeting with Treasury minister Paul Myners.

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By Huw Jones
LONDON, Sept 18 (Reuters) – Mandatory “living wills” for banks in Britain will spark major restructuring in the sector in the next few years, a UK minister said on Friday.

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