Future Horizons in Financial Regulation

School of Economics economist John Gathergood is to join a group of leading thinkers and influencers from global financial firms, international organisations, think-tanks, government, UK and international regulators contributing to the UK Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) Future Horizons project. The purpose of the project, to be launched at a conference on 7 April 2017, is to explore hypothetical future financial and societal landscapes to draw out the likely future risks and opportunities for the FCA, the industry and wider society in financial services. Lessons learned from this will contribute to the FCA’s longer term strategy. In November 2016 John also spoke at the FCA’s Mission conference which brought together a wide range of stakeholders to have an open discussion about the development of the future Mission of the FCA and to stimulate debate about the key challenges the FCA is seeking to address.

John is an academic economist whose research specialises in consumer finance. In 2014 he worked with the FCA to design a price cap on payday lending in the UK. In 2016 he was commissioned by the FCA to produce the report ‘Can we predict which consumer credit users will suffer financial distress?’ which is contributing to the FCA’s policy development in the area of creditworthiness and financial distress. Additional research insights on consumer behaviour in the credit card market from an interdisciplinary research project with Neil Stewart (Psychology, University of Warwick) using 46 million credit card statements provided by five UK credit card issuers are also contributing to the FCA’s Credit Card Market study.

John is a Co-Investigator of the ESRC Network for Integrated Behavioural Science. He is a finalist for the 2017 ESRC Prize for Outstanding Impact on Public Policy.

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