FSA - is it useless?

In message , Dave writes

What makes you think the FSA should be bothered by incompetent banks?

Incompetence is not within their remit.

Nor should it be.

There's a different quango for that, isn't there? The Banking Ombudsman.

Thats right.

In the FSA website at

We protect consumers by regulating the financial services industry.

- requiring firms and advisers to be honest, financially sound and competent

Maybe their consumer web site is wrong and you have the full charter (if charter is the right word). So either the FSA should be interested, or the general information on the web is wrong (in which case the FSA is incompetent.)

How incompetent does a bank need to be before it's stopped from trading ? I'm not just interested in my complaint I want the bank investigated for competence.

I once complained to the Association of British Insurers and the next letter I got was from Scotland Yard Serious Fraud Office. So it does happen.

Dave.

No, it's wrong.

The *FOS* is now the forum for specific consumer complaints of banking incompetence.

The FOS and FSA are supposed to liaise on issues which may indicate a general rather than a specific problem.

If the OP is complaining about the former as much as the latter, then it is, ahem, incompetent of the FSA to suggest that "it's not me, guv".

In message , Rhoy the Bhoy writes

You are right, of course, but the main point is that the FSA isnt interested in complaints about admin. Theft and fraud, yes.

But, as the OP has pointed out, competence monitoring is part of the FSA's brief. Maladmin is often the first sign of major incompetence, but is a fault in itself.

But you may be right; the FSA may well not be interested in doing its job

In message , Rhoy the Bhoy writes

Undoubtedly!

I recently complained that MBA keeps sending me mail with credit card offers, credit card cheques, etc even though I have written several times and say stoppit.

They say they take notice of the Mail Preference Service which I joined a year ago.

They do not, they just send a standard letter telling you to join.

Even though the FSA bosses have an article in the FT saying they want to discourage excess borrowing, when I complained, guess wot they said

"Not our business".

The FSA is costing a fortune, employing hundreds of clerks, and is judge, jury and executioner when they feel like it, but down at the ground level they are a bureacracy who just shuffle paper.