Strategic Advantage

What's New

Last Line of Defence

12 March 2009 - John Browne's 'Letter of the Week' in the FT Financial Adviser

The ding-dong between practitioners and regulators seems to drag on forever. The pages of Financial Adviser show that the age-old arguments and entrenched positions are continually repeated and remain unresolved.

It is blatantly obvious that there is something fundamentally wrong at the very heart of regulation. It has the wrong purpose. As a reader, but industry outsider, let me have a go at a solution.

The problem is that the same thinking that created the current regulatory framework – you know, the one that has failed the nation - is now being used to create and staff a so-called new regulatory model. Here we go again.

The consequences are dire. It is imperative that the government, regulated firms and the general public are crystal clear on the overarching purpose of regulation which should be "to enhance and protect the reputation of the financial services sector, the City and, ultimately, the UK".

Reputation has little to do with PR and spin. Reputation is about the behaviour of management; the reality of how industry and regulator staff behave and how they manage risks. It is clear from the past few weeks' events that government ministers, regulators and senior financial services managers have no intention of changing their behaviours, whatever they may say. That fact is reinforced daily throughout the sector (rewards and pensions for failure, as I write).

Instead of treating reputation as the industry’s most valuable asset, regulators strengthen their position as "rule enforcers" and industry chiefs live in the world of spin and damage limitation.

With a fresh regulatory purpose, focused on reputation, the FSA and the industry stand a fighting chance of getting the strategy right and rebuilding the public’s trust that has been squandered. Without a reputation focus we are in trouble. UK plc has little else to fall back on if you guys go down.

John Browne

Strategic Advantage Ltd

Reigate, Surrey

For additional information contact:

John Browne, Strategic Advantage Ltd
Tel: 07775 81 06 56
email: info@strategic-advantage.co.uk

12/03/2009. John Browne's 'Letter of the Week' in the FT Financial Adviser.
John proposes a new approach for the FSA and financial services regulation using reputation risk principles.

11/11/2008. Reputation Learning Academy
We have launched the Reputation Learning Academy and Best Practice Club.

6/11/2008. PRMIA Luxembourg Presentation
Director John Browne presented on Measuring and Managing Reputation Risk to the PRMIA Luxembourg Chapter Meeting.

15/09/2006. Real-time reputation risk management
Investors, marketers and corporate affairs directors want to be able to track what is being said, by whom, across all forms of media and have the findings interpreted by people who understand reputation risk management.

Specialists in Reputation Risk Management