Despite all the heated exchanges over UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s plan to renegotiate Britain’s membership of the EU, whether the UK stays in or leaves the EU may not be critical for the City. Far more important, says Tim Ambler, is the need to create a single global market for financial services. In such a global market, the potential for such a leading-edge financial services provider as London is unlimited.
Why the Financial Conduct Authority will not be fit for purpose and should be scrapped in favour of a strengthened consumer ombudsman.
In this response to the Vickers report, financial experts Tim Ambler and Miles Saltiel argue that the report's findings fail to address the root causes of the financial crisis and would create another layer of bureaucracy. Instead, the government should allow the creation of new "Trust Banks" that would be safely run, reduce arguments for protection of riskier banks, and introduce new competition to the high street.
Basel III requires an increase in the size of banks’ equity relative to their loans and a more formal assessment of risk, says Tim Ambler. Big companies will be able to shop around within the competitive international markets. However, in a situation where five big banks dominate the UK market, Britain’s small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) will be hit both by the reduced availability of loans and by higher interest rates. Since SMEs drive the UK economy, the consequence of Basel III is negative for the UK.
In a briefing paper the ASI's regulation fellow Tim Ambler examines the populist demands for financial stability and security though increased regulation. The question the paper poses is whether existing regulation mitigated the 2008 financial crisis, had no impact, or exacerbated it. Answering this question is the key to deciding how we respond to the crisis. The paper's main conclusion is that improving regulation will not provide more than modest help in future. The important thing is that the Bank of England, the FSA and the credit agencies do the jobs they are supposed to do more effectively.
Tim Ambler of the London Business School says that up to £1b a year is being wasted on unnecessary bureaucracy in the research councils - and that we would get better science at less cost by allocating the research budget directly to the universities.
The Adam Smith Institute is the UK’s leading libertarian think tank...
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