The Financial Services Authority has launched a staunch defence of its approach to remuneration in banking in response to suggestions from an influential UK Parliamentary group that the regulator was both “complacent” and “slow off the mark” in recognising the risks posed by inappropriate pay structures to financial stability.

In a response published today but sent last month to the UK's Treasury Select Committee, the FSA rejected allegations that it was complacent on remuneration and that the Turner Review on City reforms, drawn up by now-FSA chairman Lord Adair Turner, "downplays the role that remuneration structures played in causing the banking crisis".