FCA to review rate rigging controls

Others thematic reviews included a look into the conduct of wholesale banking and investment management firms.

In investment banking, the FCA will look at the issues surrounding conflicts of interest and a separate look into the way firms ensure that confidential information received in one part of the business is not abused by a different part of the business.

It will also examine the behaviour of asset managers, "focusing both on how firms ensure that trading activity is consistent with expectations of market conduct and how asset managers are acting as good agents and taking proper account of investor interests".

Mr Wheatley said: "Over the next year we will increase the intensity with which we supervise wholesale conduct to ensure that transactions undertaken by these firms do not have a harmful impact on market integrity."

Alongside reviews of the wholesale market, the regulator will assess competition issues in wholesale markets which could lead to further reviews.

This year the FCA takes on regulation of consumer credit, which "effectively doubles the number of firms" regulated by the watchdog.

"Using our new power we want to tackle harm to consumers who are most at risk and our work will focus on protecting vulnerable consumers," Mr Wheatley said.

Other areas of focus for the next year outlined in the Business Plan include using the FCA’s consumer protection objective to undertake a programme of work ensuring that consumers are being treated fairly.

The FCA also said its annual funding requirement for 2014/15 had risen to £446.4m, from £432.1m the previous year, driven by the costs of establishing the new competition team. Minimum fees charged to the industry by the FCA remain unchanged at £1,000 for the fifth year in a row, with only 42pc of firms pay the fee.

Mr Wheatley said: "We have worked hard to ensure that the small firms we regulate pay the least ... the increases will be borne mainly by larger and more complex groups which pose the most risk and are costliest to regulate."

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