Bank of England deputy governor warns against curbing financial regulations post-Brexit

Speaking to CNBC’s Joumanna Bercetche at the Innovate Finance Global Summit in London, Deputy Governor for Markets and Banking Dave Ramsden indicated that adopting light touch regulation to gain a competitive advantage for the U.K. financial sector after Brexit was not on the agenda.

Ramsden said it was important that the Bank of England retained focus in its core mission of ensuring the soundness of individual banks and the overall financial system, especially 11 years on from the start of the financial crisis.

“The lessons we have learned from that are that it’s incredibly important to always maintain the right regulation and certainly not think of reducing the regulatory stance for some kind of competitiveness reason,” said Ramsden.

“That won’t actually be good for the U.K. financial sector and won’t be good for the burgeoning fintech sector in the U.K.,” he added.

Ramsden also discussed the importance of the central bank keeping up with technological developments in banking and insurance by using artificial intelligence and the vast amount of data it gathers from companies “to make parts of the regulatory process more straightforward.”

“Given that we take a judgment-based approach to regulation, it will enable us to focus our efforts more on making those appropriate judgments so that we get the stance of regulation right.”