By Lars Mucklejohn
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has appointed an interim retail banking boss after parachuting in its director to lead the payments watchdog amid industry backlash over new fraud refund rules.
City A.M. can reveal that Emad Aladhal is due to become the City regulator’s interim director of retail banking to back-fill for David Geale.
Aladhal is due to start in the role on 1 July for a period of nine months.
Geale became interim managing director of the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) earlier this month after former boss Chris Helmsley suddenly stepped down at the end of May.
The PSR is a fully independent subsidiary of the FCA, but shares some operational services.
Helmsley’s departure came after backlash from the payments sector over new fraud reimbursement rules due to come into effect in October.
The proposals would force banks and other payment firms to reimburse victims of authorised push payment fraud up to a limit of £415,000 per claim.
However, industry figures have said the costly measures could threaten smaller firms’ business models and encourage criminals to pretend to be victims for reimbursement money. City minister Bim Afolami said last month that the proposals had “significant problems”.
Last week, trade body the Payments Association called on the PSR to delay its plan by a year to give firms more time to prepare. The group is also lobbying to lower the refund threshold to £30,000.
Since January 2021, Aladhal has been the director of a team of specialists working across financial crime at the FCA.
He has led the FCA’s response to major incidents including Covid-19 and the war in Ukraine, as well as playing a major role in its response to firm failures.
Aladhal rejoined the regulator in 2017 after a nearly four-year stint at JP Morgan.
