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The top lobbyist for British banks has been watching gleefully as several proposals he made to the government for easing regulation are happening before his eyes, from axing the payments watchdog to reworking the regime for certifying senior bankers.
Emboldened by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s push for regulators to lift obstacles to risk-taking and economic growth, David Postings told the Financial Times the shift had “created the space to consider bolder reforms”. He has a long list of more than 60 ideas that he hopes will be implemented.
They range from slashing the tax burden on the City of London to strengthening the government’s oversight of regulators. The boldness of the proposals points to a growing confidence among bankers that their reputation has been rehabilitated since they were blamed for the 2008-09 global financial crisis.
“The real issue is that over the last 15 years since the financial crisis, understandably at the beginning, there has been a move to tighten up on risk-taking and to avoid some of the excesses of the past,” Postings, the chief executive of UK Finance, said in an interview.
“But it is my belief that the pendulum has swung a little bit too far and what we are asking for is a rebalancing so that we get more people included in the financial system, both in terms of ability to access products and to borrow,” he added. “In doing that we will have more growth.”
Postings said he had been “working closely” with the Treasury and “discussed for a long time” almost all of the 60-plus recommendations in UK Finance’s “plan for growth” report, due out this week. “They wanted us to do this kind of thing,” he said.
There are already signs the government has been listening closely to what the banks want.
On Monday, top watchdogs including the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority will be summoned to Downing Street to discuss the government’s latest push to cut red tape.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves said the plan, which includes a commitment to reduce the administrative cost of regulation by 25 per cent, would “free businesses from the shackles of regulation”.
It followed last week’s announcement by the prime minister that he was axing the Payment Systems Regulator. Hours later, the FCA said it was ditching its contentious proposal to “name and shame” more companies it investigates.
Both were among UK Finance’s proposals. Other ideas in the report have also been committed to by ministers or regulators, including scaling back the certification regime for senior bankers, curbing the powers of the Financial Ombudsman Service and easing mortgage limits.
Postings said he was confident there would be many more such moves, arguing that fixing the burden of regulation will require action across many areas over a sustained period. “There isn’t really a silver bullet, one hit and we are out, we are free,” he said.
Starmer seems to agree. Last week he said he wanted to shake-up the “cottage industry of checkers and blockers” among regulators, while denying he would “take a chainsaw to the system” in an Elon Musk-style purge of the public sector.
One area where the government is yet to show much appetite for bending to the banks’ will is tax. “We were asked by the Treasury not to be shy about taxation,” said Postings. However, he acknowledged the sector was prepared to be more patient in this area, accepting that tax breaks for banks were a hard sell with ministers preparing to slash welfare spending.
“We understand that, at the moment, it is fiscally impossible to do some of the things we are asking for,” he said. “What we are asking for is some kind of road map that gives us a direction of travel on this; it may be two parliaments or longer.”
The effective tax rate on UK banks is 45.8 per cent, compared with 25-35 per cent in countries such the US, Germany and Ireland, said Postings, who worked in the sector for 40 years before joining UK Finance, most recently as chief executive of invoice factoring group Bibby Financial Services.
The UK Finance report contains a raft of ideas for lightening the tax burden on the sector. It calls for the bank-specific corporation tax surcharge and bank levy to be phased out, a review of value added tax on the sector and an end to stamp duty on equity trading.
The lobby group has also urged the government to keep the tax-free cash Isa savings accounts that the Treasury is considering reforming, and suggested introducing a dividend franking regime to cut taxes on distributions to shareholders.
Postings also has in his sights the ringfencing regime introduced over a decade ago to separate banks’ deposit-taking retail arms from their corporate and investment banking operations.
UK Finance wants areas of overlap between ringfencing and the regime for resolving failed banks to be eliminated. “We think that it could be changed, maybe not all in one go but with a trajectory of getting us to a point where it is ringfencing-light,” Postings said.
