EMAIL
PRINT
RSS
SHARE
Hector Sants, chief executive of the Financial Services Authority (FSA), speaks to an audience at the offices of Thomson Reuters in Canary Wharf March 12, 2009.
1 of 1 
Digg
Del.icio.us
Newsvine 
Facebook
Stumbleupon
LONDON - The top financial regulator announced Tuesday Hector Sants planned to step down, surprising the markets and casting doubt over the future of the Financial Services Authority and broader banking reform.
1 of 1
The Conservative Party has said it wants to abolish the FSA and hand its banking supervisory powers to the Bank of England, saying it failed to spot problems ahead of the financial crisis.
The regulator said Sants, who will leave in July, had always planned to hold the chief executive post for only three years, but did not outline a succession plan. It said Sants' successor would be announced in due course.
Sants, a highly regarded former investment banker, took over the top job in July 2007, rising from head of the regulator's wholesale and institutional markets division to take the helm.
Sants, who has steered the regulator through the financial crisis and the painful fallout that followed, joined the FSA from Credit Suisse First Boston in 2004.
(Reporting by Kirstin Ridley and Clara Ferreira-Marques)
Shares in British banks rose on the FTSE 100 in morning trading following positive news on the Greek debt crisis.
Unite, the union, has gone to international unions, in its attempts to bring the...
© 2010 The IBTimes Company Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Partners 
