Boardroom recruits to face grilling as FSA ends rubber-stamping

Christine Seib and Patrick Hosking The City watchdog has insisted on vetting new bank directors, amid concerns that a lack of expertise in boardrooms contributed to the financial crisis. The Financial Services Authority (FSA) recently abandoned its rubber-stamping approach and insisted on face-to-face interviews with all new bank directors, The Times has learnt. The need for extra vigilance by the FSA came as the 50 directors of HBOS, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Barclays - the banks regarded as most likely to tap the Government for capital injections - found themselves under growing scrutiny. The three banks' boards were paid almost £17 million last year, despite overseeing billions of pounds of writedowns on structured credit products. Yesterday the Government offered to spend up to £50 billion buying preference shares... [read full story]