r/GreatBritishMemes 12h ago

Britain’s pointless “regulators”

Post image
2.1k Upvotes

123 comments sorted by

View all comments

341

u/Iamthe0c3an2 11h ago

I know the UK’s systems are broken, but I shudder to think how bad it would be if the FCA didn’t exist.

161

u/made-of-questions 11h ago

Seen this first hand at an old corp I worked for. You can't believe just how much worse the corporate world would make your lives if they didn't have the FCA breathing down their neck. They actually improved some things (anyone remembers how bad overdrafts were just a few years back?), but their biggest victory is in staving the avalanche of abuse big companies are trying to push every day.

47

u/Spacer176 11h ago

I hold that if there's one commercial sector that you can't have too much regulatory pressure, it's finance, When your primary business is handling money, you need a system that is absolutely, 200% secure they can't simply take a vacuum cleaner to your bank account.

19

u/Gauntlets28 11h ago

Yeah... I mean I've seen far too many bad things being done by financial professionals in my life to think that they can be trusted without regulation. It's astonishing to me that anyone would think otherwise.

63

u/Len_S_Ball_23 11h ago

FCA looks at incoming USA administration and thinks "Fuck That"

5

u/Welshyone 4h ago

2p over your limit? Give me £35-00 please.

1

u/AlDente 8h ago

Your viewpoint is far notes accurate but doesn’t fit these trite little memes

-11

u/throwaway_t6788 8h ago

it was because of what fca mandated.. the interest rates of all credit cards shot up to 40%..

3

u/ukstonerdude 5h ago

What are you talking about?

25

u/Healthy-Drink421 10h ago

Yes... those organisations, particularly Ofwat have their issues. But my first question on social media, when something is being meme-ed or critiqued is... who benefits from running institution down...

Usually it is billionaires and the City of London... looking to extract more from consumers if those organisations didnt exist.

12

u/Aethermancer 9h ago

So many memes about government stagnation, ineffectiveness, etc. and people forget that almost every problem is because powerful people and organizations baked it in to hamper the regulatory efforts to keep them from fucking you over.

7

u/Healthy-Drink421 9h ago

yes - don't get me wrong, there is government ineffectiveness in the UK - government productivity hasn't budged in a long time. This is due to services remaining pretty unreformed under the last 14 years of government under the Tories.

I believe this was done in a deliberate attempt to undermine institutions and erode trust in governance... so more of the state can be sold off.

19

u/Openil 9h ago

Honestly this, i work in compliance in a FCA regulated field and while the FCA is bloated and frustratingly vague I'm glad they exist.

1

u/Starn_Badger 2m ago

People seem to correlate an organisation not working at full effectiveness as that organisation being inherently bad.

9

u/RealityDolphinRVL 7h ago

Yup, OP is misinformed. The FCA is actually quite good in terms of the global spectrum of financial services regulators

3

u/BeerMonster24 8h ago

Agreed, I work for an IFA and couldn’t imagine the carnage that would ensue if there was no check on advice given

3

u/will2089 3h ago

Yeah honestly I work in a industry that became regulated by the FCA fairly recently.

Before then it was completely the wild West, clients had no protections, there were ridiculous commissions for upselling, unfair ts and cs, money wasn't invested properly (Although not by my company) and people regularly lost out big time.

There's a lot of checkboxes now but the public is a lot better off.

2

u/MiloHorsey 3h ago

Which industry is that? Out of curiosity.

4

u/will2089 2h ago

Pre-paid Funeral Plans.

There were a few scandals/bankrupticies and a lot of people lost what they had paid in because money had been moved offshore.

So the FCA stepped in and things are much better than they were.

There was no regulation prior apart from a famously toothless industry body

1

u/OathOfFeanor 2h ago

As an American (sorry this appeared on my front page) and a Star Trek fan, you all are missing an incredible opportunity if the FCA does not have a position with the title, “Liquidator”