Barclays aims for ethical edge as it confirms Sants as compliance chief

BARCLAYS has confirmed that former financial services watchdog Hector Sants will be joining the bank in an effort to boost its regulatory compliance oversight in the wake of having to pay hundreds of millions in fines.

The former chief executive of the Financial Services Authority (FSA) will join the controversy-struck lender in the newly-created role of “head of compliance and government and regulatory relations”. He will report directly to recently-appointed chief executive Antony Jenkins.

It is thought that Jenkins was keen to recruit Sants in an effort to make Barclays the “go-to” bank in terms of ethical standards of business behaviour.

All compliance staff will report to Sants, who will join Barclays in January and whose office will “operate independent of business and regional management teams”.

Sants left the regulator in June, just days before the FSA whacked Barclays with a £290m fine for attempting to manipulate Libor, and which led to the departure of a number of senior executives including chief executive Bob Diamond.

Jenkins said: “When I set Barclays the goal of becoming the ‘go-to’ bank for all of our stakeholders, I emphasised the importance of cultural change in delivering that outcome.

“Our people always acting in the right way in all of our interactions will be central to our culture – simply how we do business – but it is important to bolster that with the second line of defence provided by controls and a world-class compliance function.”