FSA goes head-to-head with ex-HBOS banker

FSA goes head-to-head with ex-HBOS banker




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A former HBOS banker has clashed with the FSA after early findings from a regulatory investigation sought to blame him for a large part of the recent financial crisis.

Peter Cummings was a prominent figure at HBOS and was seen as integral to the rapid expansion at the time, bankrolling Sir Phillip Green and the Tchenguiz brothers.

 

Cummings, HBOS’s highest-paid banker, led the bank’s investment in commercial real estate, construction and takeover finance. The corporate banking unit “lent too much,” former HBOS Chairman Dennis Stevenson told a Parliamentary committee hearing in February 2009.

 

According to the Telegraph, the FSA has been investigating Cummings for over two years and tried to agree a deal whereby he will agree to a voluntary ban from working in the City and in exchange it will drop an investigation into his time as head of corporate banking.

 

Cummings has apparently refused this deal and intimated that, if he was guilty of any wrong doing, a full investigation should be carried out.

 

Lloyds Banking Group Plc needed more than £20 billion of taxpayer aid after acquiring HBOS in 2008, when the latter was close to collapse and found to be effectively bankrupt after taking on corporate loans and property deals that caused huge losses.

 

The FSA recently announced that they will be publishing findings from an investigation into the failures at HBOS, and the FSA itself, which contributed to the forced merger with Lloyds and the bailout.

 

The regulator said HBOS was the subject of ongoing enforcement investigations, and that the final result of its investigations were not yet known. FSA chairman Adair Turner said that a full report into the findings for the investigation would be published once it had been fully completed.

 

“Producing such a public information report will be appropriate whatever the final result of the enforcement investigation,” he said.

 

“This is because even a successful enforcement action, accompanied by the publication of related evidence, would only illuminate very specific elements of the HBOS story, rather than providing a comprehensive account of the causes of failure.”

2 Comments

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    Joanne Dove

    Totally agree Nikki. The FSA should be investigated for offering a deal ITS TOTALLY CORRUPT! the problem is when lots of evidence was sent to the FSA the same poeple who worked there then now work for the owners of HBOS ! so what is the FSA ? an early warning system for banks to shred evidence lest they get caught in the act of defrauding themselves of millions with their accomplices? And if the FSA cut a deal do the police have to be complicit in that corruption do they then pay them to shut up and stop invetsigating - so much corruption - The police should investigate the FSA and what a web of incest they would discover between the banks and the FSA.

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    Nikki Turner

    What must be understood is that HBOS and specifically BoS Corporate "lent too much" to itself. Peter Cummings for example, was a Director of 148 Companies predominantly between 2000 and 2008 and I would be surprised if any of those Companies banked with anyone other than BoS. Bank of Scotland Corporate which was headed up by Mr Cummings, wasn't about lending, it was about 'owning' other people's businesses. While the conduct of HBOS itself was outrageous and, in some instances criminal (which is why Thames Valley Police have been investigating HBOS for over a year) the idea that the FSA would 'cut a deal' with Peter Cummings, is beyond belief. Clearly Lord Turner and Hector Sants have no idea of the misery the ex senior bankers of the two Scottish banks have caused to so many people. To 'cut deals' is an insult to the entire Country.

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