Former Financial Services Authority head Sir Howard Davies is set to become the next chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland, replacing the outgoing Sir Philip Hampton.
The announcement is expected by this week when RBS, which is 80 per cent owned by the taxpayer following its 2008 bail-out, publishes its yearly results.
During his watch as chair of the FSA, between 1997 to 2003, he dealt with issues such as the mis-selling of endowment mortgages and EU proposals to apply capital rules for banks to investment banks.
He was criticised in the report published by the commission, set up in July 2012 following Libor to look at reforming the banking sector, for not picking up on payment protection mis-selling.
He went on to become a director of the London School of Economics but was forced to resign in 2011 following a barrage of criticism in the aftermath of the institution’s decision to accept funding from a foundation linked to the family of former Libyan dictator Muammer Gaddafi.
Since 2012 he has been chairman of Phoenix Group.
Sir Howard has been an independent director of Morgan Stanley since 2004, and chairs the Risk Committee. He also chairs the Risk Committee at Prudential, whose board he joined in 2010.
He is a member of the Regulatory and Compliance Advisory Board of Millennium, a New York-based hedge fund, and has been a member of the International Advisory Council of the China Banking Regulatory Commission since 2003.
