PRA (Prudential Regulatory Authority)

A shift in focus by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) toward the biggest City banks in the wake of the financial crisis has led to a dramatic reduction in the number of risk assessments conducted into financial firms.

Hector Sants, chief executive of the FSA, said the organisation's successor the Prudential Regulatory Authority (PRA) will take a judgment-based rather than reactive approach to regulation.

Can you see a change in focus for the FSA's replacement, following its renaming to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), rather than the previously suggested Consumer Protection and Markets Authority (CPMA)?

Margaret Cole, director of enforcement at the FSA, will become the head of half of the regulator as it divides in two in April.

Mark Hoban, financial secretary to the Treasury, was today forced to face down challenges by leading insurers who fear the new regulatory regime will be biased towards banking.

FSA chief executive Hector Sants is thought to be uncomfortable with Governor Mervyn King's hardline stance on the banking system which helped hurl Britain into recesssion.

Chancellor George Osborne has applauded the restructure of the FSA and reassured MPs the new regulator will not simply ‘tick boxes'.

The FSA has named more of the team who will run the UK's ‘twin peaks' financial regulation post-2012, including its current major retail groups' director Clive Adamson who takes control of firms' supervision.