Hector Sants, the chief executive of the Financial Services Authority, today dismissed the idea that the sweeping changes to be brought in by the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer was the regulator's biggest challenge in the coming year. He instead cited two other "far more difficult" issues for the market regulator.

Chancellor George Osborne last week unveiled plans to revamp the regulatory framework in the UK when he proposed that the Bank of England be given overall responsibility to oversee macro and micro-prudential oversight.