FCA looking to hire hundreds of new staff to get grip on consumer credit market

The financial services watchdog is recruiting for a number of senior roles in a push to expand its oversight and supervision of the City’s credit space.

The Financial Conduct Authority, based in Stratford, is looking for a lead supervisor for credit and debt as well as a director for consumer finance.

In the publicly available job ad, the FCA stressed the director for consumer finance is “an important senior leadership role which has significant influence in UK financial markets.”

The role involves the responsibility to regulate 36,000 non-bank retail lending firms and manage a team of around 125 to 150 people, reporting directly to the executive director of consumer and protection.

In total, the watchdog is planning to recruit around 200 new staff members this quarter, according to a P2P Finance News report.

Roles that are currently being advertised are for jobs involving supervision, intervention and authorisation.

Peer-to-peer lending is another area the FCA wants to get more oversight over.

P2P Finance News pointed out that the watchdog is currently also advertising for a lead supervisor for credit and debt services for its retail lending department within its supervision, policy and competition division, which is in charge of developing and delivering strategies to prevent harm to consumers whilst promoting competition.

The job advert indicated that the lead associate will support the management team in running the department and supervise firms by building supervisory cases.