FCA chairman John Griffith-Jones has told the Treasury Select Committee “basic contingency plans” are in place in case Scotland votes to become independent from the UK.
Mr Griffith-Jones told the Committee this morning it had been preparing for a potential flurry of calls from concerned businesses and investors should Scotland vote ‘Yes’ on September 18.
“We have done some basic contingency planning although it is fair to say that the conduct issues are likely to emerge slowly once we know what the Scottish parliament wants to put in place if the vote was yes,” he said.
“We have been making sure phone lines are manned properly if people ring us, and have been making sure we have a position around what advice would be approprite to be given were consumers to ask ‘what should I do’ on day one.”
The chairman of the committee Andrew Tyrie asked Mr Griffith-Jones if a new regulator would be required.
The FCA chairman said this would be the responsibility of the Scottish parliament in terms of how it wanted its financial services sector regulated but expected the process to be “complicated”.
“I think we will find ourselves with a lot of work to do in the process of setting up a new regulatory regime,” he added.
