The new center is anticipated to provide the tools and expertise needed to meet the growing security challenges to come, and to maintain the integrity of the UK’s financial sector, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) said.
All of us involved in the fight against financial crime have to recognize that risks in this area inevitably evolve quickly and our responses have to match them, said John Tiner, FSA chief executive. This is a continuing challenge: as we react to the most recent attacks, so the criminals move onto new ways of achieving their objectives. We have to keep raising our game and the FSA is responding to this by creating the financial crime and intelligence division.
Led by director Philip Robinson, the new division will examine the risks facing consumers from increasing information security and hi-tech crime, working closely with other regulators. This will include the potential for low-tech breaches of security, such as the careless disposal of sensitive data.
In addition to those tasks, the division will be working with a number of economic experts, internally as well as externally, to create an effective means of measuring the real scale of the problem posed by financial crime. It will also work closely with law enforcement and other regulators to identify, assess and manage criminal threats in the UK’s financial domain.
