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CML not bluffing over FSA review
From its inception four years ago, Mortgage Strategy’s sister title Lending Strategy ran a column called Coogan’s Bluff in which Michael Coogan, director general of the Council of Mortgage Lenders, penned an 800-word tongue-in-cheek piece on an issue of the day.
It is rare to find a bureaucrat with a sense of humour, let alone able to express it with fluent but fatuous arguments to support positions he disagreed with on regulation, the economy, and the mortgage market.
Thus when there was a call for a return to good old-fashioned banking, he made a great case for bringing back mortgage queues and all that was bad when the building societies enjoyed a monopoly.
Sadly, this all came to an end as the credit crunch tightened its grip and Coogan felt that his column might be misunderstood.
But then, just last week, I received an email intelligence headed CML - what we like about the FSA. Gosh, I thought, Coogan’s Bluff has returned, and with a vengeance.
The email highlighted the CML’s response to the Mortgage Market Review, and that while there are proposals it takes issue with, it largely agrees with the FSA’s diagnosis of the problems.
Oh yes, pull the other one, I thought with a grin. But the CML seems to have found its comfort zone within the FSA framework and has, for instance, given up the struggle for a return to more innovative forms of mortgage funding.
JOHN MURRAY
CONSULTING EDITOR
LENDING STRATEGY
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