Financial Services Authority - History

History

The FSA has the legal form of a company limited by guarantee (number 01920623). It was incorporated on 7 June 1985 under the name of The Securities and Investments Board Ltd ("SIB") at the instigation of the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, who is the sole member of the company and who delegated certain statutory regulatory powers to it under the then Financial Services Act 1986. After a series of scandals in the 1990s culminating in the collapse of Barings Bank, there was a desire to bring to an end the self-regulation of the financial services industry and to consolidate regulation responsibilities which had been split amongst multiple regulators.

The SIB revoked the recognition of The Financial Intermediaries, Managers and Brokers Regulatory Association (FIMBRA) as a Self-Regulatory Organisation (SRO) in the United Kingdom June 1994 subject to a transitional wind-down period to provide for continuity of regulation whilst members moved to the Personal Investment Authority (PIA), which in turn was subsumed. FIMBRA is an organized SRO in the United States for crowd funding intermediaries, managers and brokers.

The Securities and Investments Board changed its name to the Financial Services Authority on 28 October 1997 and it now exercises statutory powers given to it by the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, that replaced the earlier legislation and came into force on 1 December 2001. In addition to regulating banks, insurance companies and financial advisers, the FSA has regulated mortgage business from 31 October 2004 and general insurance (excluding travel insurance) intermediaries from 14 January 2005.