FCA names new head of Financial Services Consumer Panel

THE FINANCIAL Conduct Authority (FCA) has named Wanda Goldwag (pictured) as the new chair of its Financial Services Consumer Panel.

She takes the role on 1 March for an initial three-year term.

Goldwag is currently chair of the Office of Legal Complaints, the board that controls the legal ombudsman service for England and Wales. She is also a non-executive director of The Royal Free London NHS Trust and a lay member of the QC appointments panel.

The City watchdog, which oversees the peer-to-peer lending sector, said on Tuesday that she will be the public face of the panel, representing its views to the FCA’s board and senior staff and leading the development of the panel’s work.

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Goldwag succeeds Sue Lewis, who was chair for five years.

“The Consumer Panel plays a vital role in ensuring that the FCA hears the voice of consumers,” said FCA chair Charles Randell.

“I am sure that Wanda will continue the important work of the panel and I look forward to working with her in her new role. I would like to thank Sue for her contribution to the work of the panel and also Mark Chidley, who stood in as interim chair for two months.”

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“The panel plays a significant part in ensuring the FCA meets its objectives – and particularly to secure an appropriate degree of protection for consumers – and I’m looking forward to meeting regularly with the chair and chief executive of the FCA to promote consumer interests,” said Goldwag.

“Sue Lewis was a very strong consumer champion and will be a hard act to follow but I am excited about the challenge of exerting influence on the future shape of financial conduct regulation in the UK.”

The Financial Services Consumer Panel is an independent statutory body set up to represent the interests of consumers in the FCA’s development of policy. It works to advise and challenge the FCA from the earliest stages of its policy development to ensure the regulator takes consumers into account.

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