Turner: 'Overburdened' FSA contributed to financial crisis

Lord Adair Turner has said one of the major flaws in the regulatory structure which failed to avert the financial crisis in the UK was the FSA was "asked to do too much".

In his final Mansion House speech after four years as FSA chairman, Turner said the regulator combined functions that are "best kept separate", such as prudential and conduct supervision. An overburdened regulator, he said, plus unsafe rules on global bank liquidity and a "dangerous culture" within major banks, combined to cause the downturn and subsequent recession. "So, the crisis was not a bolt from the blue - it arose from poor supervision, from bad rules and structures, from dangerous cultures - and the errors were made by regulators, economists, central bankers and public policy...