21/8/2013: FinReg Appointment

The Central Bank announced the appointment of the new FinReg. Announcement is here:
http://www.centralbank.ie/press-area/press-releases/Pages/NewDeputyGovernorFinancialRegulationAppointed.aspx

My (sketchy) views on the appointment are here:
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/08/21/ireland-regulator-idUKL6N0GM1AF20130821
and here:

Critically, I do not know Mr Roux stand on key points of regulatory and strategic affairs relating to the financial services in Ireland and Europe, including:

1. Role of competition in provision of services and securing systemic stability;
2. Role of consumer protection in delivering the same;
3. Role of implicit and explicit state subsidies to the incumbent institutions and the issue of TBTF institutions;
4. Legacy debt, risks and business strategies and the regulatory approaches for dealing with these;
5. Capture risk of regulatory and supervisory systems in the environment of social partnership and closely linked society, such as Ireland;
6. Recent regulatory activism, e.g. shorting bans;
7. Recent policy shifts toward centralised regulatory oversight and controls, unified banking supervision and regulation, FTT, etc.

There are other potentially important questions to be asked in days to come. 

I most certainly hope Mr Roux can continue with the competent and professional work that Mr Elderfield has started. 

To the credit of its top management team, the Central Bank today is a different institution, transformed from at the top, and still being transformed down the ranks (it takes long time to work through rank-and-file cadre pool). The transformations that took place to-date are for the better and serve as an example of what can be achieved in the rest of Irish public sector. This is not to say that the CBI is free of criticism, but to point out that there have been strongly positive changes in the institution that started with Mr. Elderfield and Prof. Honohan's appointments.