The U.K. Financial Services Authority has published a consultation paper proposing a new framework to regulate the way that banks treat their retail customers.

Next year, the FSA will become responsible for regulating banks and building societies payment transactions. The review published today considers whether it would be more effective to extend the FSA’s regulation across all aspects of banks’ relationships with their retail customers. This would exclude credit, such as unsecured loans and credit cards, which is regulated by the Office of Fair Trading.

The FSA is proposing:

> full application of the FSA’s Principles for Businesses to the regulated activities of accepting deposits and issuing electronic-money;

> developing new high-level rules applying to retail banking services, and transferring existing conduct rules and guidance applying to deposit taking, into a new rulebook; and

> monitoring and enforcement by the FSA, integrated into the wider risk-based approach to supervision.

“Retail banking is going through a period of rapid change and regulation needs to keep pace with this change. We believe that in order to ensure that the regulatory model is fit to meet these challenges, now and in the future, the FSA should regulate the wider aspects of everyday banking for all consumers,” said Jon Pain, FSA managing director of retail markets, in a release.

Comments are due by Feb. 16, 2009.

IE