LONDON (Reuters) – Shareholders would have the final say on who checks their company’s books under a proposal from a top European Union lawmaker seeking to end a deadlock over shaking up auditors.

Accounting firms face sweeping changes after criticism for giving banks a clean bill of health just months before they had to be rescued by taxpayers in the financial crisis.

LONDON (Reuters) – The international accounting body working to beef up company audit rules says it is running short of money and wants the United States to stump up more cash to help it complete its reforms.

The Group of 20 economies (G20) want to make it easier to spot risks on bank balance sheets to avoid taxpayers again having to bail out lenders as they did in the financial crisis.

LONDON, April 10 (Reuters) – Rules to make banks safer after
the financial crisis need to be simplified quickly to stop large
banking groups using them to their advantage, a senior Bank of
England official said on Wednesday.

The remarks by Andrew Haldane, the bank’s executive director
for financial stability, echo comments he made in Washington on
Tuesday, when he said simpler rules were needed to make it
harder for big banks to game the supervisory system.

LONDON (Reuters) – The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) announced sweeping changes in financial regulation on Tuesday, telling banks they can no longer blame customers when products go wrong and promising to study how consumers behave to make sure they can make the right decisions.

The FCA is one of two new agencies launched this month to replace the Financial Services Authority and rewrite the rules for a financial industry brought low by the 2008 crisis and years of costly misbehaviour.

LONDON, April 10 (Reuters) – Britain’s new watchdog
announced sweeping changes in financial regulation on Tuesday,
telling banks they can no longer blame customers when products
go wrong and promising to study how consumers behave to make
sure they can make the right decisions.

The Financial Conduct Authority is one of two new agencies
launched this month to replace the Financial Services Authority
and rewrite the rules for a financial industry brought low by
the 2008 crisis and years of costly misbehaviour.

LONDON, April 9 (Reuters) – British banks could pay up to a
quarter more to be supervised as two new watchdogs adopt more
intrusive regulation and impose higher fines which will be paid
into the coffers of cash-strapped government.

The defunct Financial Services Authority (FSA), scrapped in
March to correct supervisory failures uncovered by the financial
crisis, used to keep fines to subsidise its own operating costs.

LONDON, April 8 (Reuters) – Opponents of a proposed
financial transaction tax said the new charge would lead to a
massive upheaval in the financial services industry, shackle
investors and harm the economy.

Stepping up their lobbying against the tax, which 11 euro
zone countries plan to introduce next January, critics said
repurchase transactions and market-making in government bonds
should be exempt to avoid bumping up costs for governments.

LONDON, April 5 (Reuters) – Britain’s banks must address
persistent doubts among both investors and regulators about
their capital adequacy ratios by tightening up the way they
quantify risk, the Bank of England said.

The Bank of England’s Financial Policy Committee (FPC) said
it will discuss at its next meeting in June whether banks should
be forced to add up risks in two different ways, which could
bump up costs.

LONDON (Reuters) – The world’s top banking regulatory body said over half its members missed the January deadline set by global leaders for introducing tougher rules to make banks safer.

Critics say the delay underlines the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision’s lack of enforcement powers which means it can only “name and shame” laggards.

LONDON, April 3 (Reuters) – A planned EU tax on securities
transactions will add billions of pounds to the cost of issuing
debt in Britain, hitting companies and government finances even
though the country will not impose the levy, a study said on
Wednesday.

The City of London Corporation, home to much of Britain’s
financial services industry, said a study it commissioned
estimated the tax would add 4 billion pounds ($6.1 billion) to
the cost of issuing UK debt if it were in force this year.