Planned reforms to UK banking regulation would have eased the impact of the global financial crisis, Chancellor George Osborne has said. The proposed overhaul will give the Bank of England the key role in regulating the sector and this would allow regulators to take a broader view of UK banking, Mr Osborne told the BBC. Such oversight would have seen RBS’s disastrous takeover of ABN Amro more closely scrutinised, he added. ‘While this was going on, there was nobody looking at the big picture of whether this was a good idea’, Mr Osborne told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. ‘A central bank (as a regulator) has the capacity and authority to do that’ Asked whether his regime would have left Britain less exposed to the last banking crisis, he said it would have done. ‘There would have been someone in the system looking at the overall levels of debt that were rising very rapidly in the middle of the last decade’ the chancellor said. In his first Mansion House speech to the City of London on Wednesday night, Mr Osborne confirmed that the Financial Services Authority (FSA) would ‘cease to exist in its current form’. The parts that are supposed to protect consumers and crack down on crime will be injected respectively into a new Consumer Protection Agency and an Economic Crime Agency. Mr Osborne said the government would also create a powerful new Financial Policy Committee at the Bank of England. He added he was confident that the transition to the new authority would work – especially as FSA chief executive Hector Sants had agreed to stay on and oversee the transition, having previously said he would be leaving. Mr Sants will then head the new ‘prudential regulator’ charged with regulating banks and other financial institutions. The process of reforming the regulatory system is due to be completed by 2012.

Well over half (60%) of Britons believe they will have to delay the date when they can finish work as a result of the fiscal conditions that continue to hamper the UK. Over a third think their eventual date of retirement will be delayed by over five years, research from Aon Consulting has found. Females believe they will be more likely to have to continue working, with 62% prepared to shelve retirement, compared with 57% of men. Almost seven in ten (69%) UK workers aged between 35 and 44 believe they will have to delay their retirement, but just 47% of 55-66 years old will.

US banks will foot a total bill of about $2bn (£1.35bn) in their second quarter results to pay for the UK tax on bankers’ bonuses – a charge that could significantly reduce earnings at financial groups such as Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase and Bank of America. The amounts to be paid by US banks, with Goldman Sachs alone in line for a $600m plus charge, will contribute to a windfall of £2.5bn from the levy, larger than expected by the British authorities. Analysts say the tax will be a negative factor when US banks report results for the April-June period next month, reducing earnings per share at Citi, JP Morgan and BofA by 10% or more.

And finally, it might surprise you to know there have been studies on the relationship between the success of the England football team and the stock market. It will probably surprise you less to know that they have found a win increases confidence and boosts shares, while a loss leads to depressed trading. The latest research comes from academics at Bangor, Leeds and Newcastle Universities and reports that the FTSE 100 rises, on average, on the day after an England win but falls slightly on the day after a draw or loss.

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