Source: The Guardian

By: Jill Treanor

Mark Steward to join Financial Conduct Authority from Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission as reshuffle continues

Fines and penalties on City firms will in future be meted out by Mark Steward, who has been appointed head of enforcement at the Financial Conduct Authority.

Steward, an Australian, is moving to London from a similar role at the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission, where the current FCA boss, Martin Wheatley, was also hired from.

The head of enforcement role became vacant after Tracey McDermott was promoted to head of supervision at the start of the year during a reorganisation of the regulator. The position had been temporarily filled by Georgina Philippou, who will return to her role of director of strategy and delivery.

Steward’s appointment comes after a swath of fines on the industry, including record penalties on banks for rigging foreign exchange and interest rate markets, as well as for mistreatment of customers. Lloyds was on Friday handed a record PPI fine of £117m for mishandling complaints.

His predecessor’s salary was £270,000. His appointment was announced alongside that of Barbara Frohn, who is joining from Santander and will fill the new role of director of risk and compliance oversight.

“These are two vital roles within the UK regulatory system and it says a lot about the FCA that we have been able to attract such high calibre candidates to fill them,” Wheatley said.

The Bank of England also announced that Andrew Hauser has been named as executive director of banking, payments and financial resilience, a new position. Hauser previously ran the secretariat for the fair and efficient markets review commissioned by George Osborne a year ago. The outcome of that review, which examines ways to clean up markets in the wake of Libor and forex scandals, is due to be published shortly.