Secretariat

"I’m supporting the APPG out of concern for the impact of financial crime and what is sometimes too blithely dismissed as ‘sharp practise’, on people I’ve interviewed. A lot of financial institutions have been failing consumers and the next generation, recidivists who are out of step with building a sustainable world. Covering these issues brought me into Andy Agathangelou’s Transparency Task Force and, in turn, their drive to support this APPG."

I am very pleased to be Chairing the Secretariat Committee for the APPG on Personal Banking and Fairer Financial Services because it is profoundly important that all members of the public can trust and have confidence in our financial services sector. This APPG is determined to do all it can to help ensure that retail banks, other financial institutions and the regulatory framework create a financial ecosystem that serves society fairly and transparently. I am very grateful to all the members of the Transparency Task Force who have kindly volunteered alongside me to provide the APPG with the operational, administrative and secretariat services that are required.

"Over the past 10 years I have spent the majority of my working life helping people who have lost money in a wide range of scams, to succesfully fight to get their money back. I specifically concentrate on complex scams where there are a plethora of companies and individuals involved – they are the most challenging cases but also the most rewarding, when we win. I also spend a large amount of my time working to ensure that the regulatory bodies, compensation and mediation schemes are acting in the victim’s best interests – there is a great deal of scope for improvement on that front.

For all these reasons I am very pleased to volunteer to support the APPG’s work, however I can - I feel a very strong sense of alignment to it. And I do hope the insights and expertise I have accumulated over the years will help in some way, as part of the team effort."

"I spent over thirty years of my professional career working as a Statistician/actuary in the General Insurance industry. I worked for a number of organisations including a final spell before I retired in 2017 as the sole in-house General Insurance actuary at the Financial Conduct Authority.

Having been on both sides of the regulatory divide - having been responsible for one company's response to a regulatory visit and then being a regulator myself, I feel I am in a unique position to assist the APPG in its work. I passionately believe in the need for an effective insurance and banking regulator with the internal knowledge and skills to do the job well. I look forward to working with the secretariat and the APPG members to help achieve just that."

"I am privileged and honoured to be part of this Secretariat and to contribute to its important and purposeful work. I aim to bring insights from the Australian experience of sustained and widespread misconduct in our financial industry, the subornation and capture of our regulators, and the findings of Australia’s Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry. In particular there are important commonalities between Australia and the UK that relate to the Twin Peaks financial regulatory regime, first implemented in Australia, and subsequently copied in the UK."

"Anthony was elected as Police and Crime Commissioner on 16^th November 2012 and stepped down earlier this year.

He was born in Newbury and West Berks has been his home all his life. He is currently a member of West Berks Council, and was a member of the Thames Valley Police Authority for several years before taking over as Chairman of the Performance Committee in 2011. 

He has had a career in both the military and in industry. He enlisted in the Army at 17 and joined the Royal Green Jackets where he saw active service in Borneo and Northern Ireland. He learnt to fly helicopters at Middle Wallop and commanded various Army Air Corps Squadrons, including the Army helicopters in the Falkland Islands in the latter half of 1982.

He spent 2 years as Chief of Staff Intelligence in the Far East. On leaving the Army he was Marketing Director, and then, for 6 years, Managing Director of the aircraft company Pilatus Britten Norman, which had aircraft in over 100 countries. At the same time he commanded the Army reserve helicopters as a TA officer. 

While in the Army he spent 4 months carrying out the reconnaissance for the crossing of the Darien Gap in Panama and Columbia, and led the first stage of Operation Raleigh, taking young people through the jungles of Honduras and Belize. He was, for 8 years, a trustee of the Thames Valley Air Ambulance. 

He has an M.Sc and studied international terrorism and global security in depth at university."

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"I've volunteered to be part of the Secretariat Committee for the APPG because I hope that with over 20 years experience as a Trustee for both personal and occupational pension schemes I can make a small contribution in protecting innocent pension scheme members from unscrupulous criminals who prey on the vulnerable."

"I've volunteered to be part of the Secretariat Committee for the APPG because my legal expertise and experience in banking cases will be useful to the Committee."

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“I am a former solicitor and served six years of a twelve-year prison sentence for my facilitating role in a multi-million-pound mortgage and bank fraud. Whilst serving my prison sentence I completed an MSc in Counter Fraud and Corruption, before undertaking a PhD where my research examined the organisation of mortgage fraud and its relationship to the governance, control and regulation of financial services in the UK.

I have volunteered to be part of the Secretariat Committee for the APPG because I am hopeful that my lived experience of financial crime could prove of value to the Committee in the pursuance of their objective to bring about positive change in the banking and financial services sector, for the benefit of our society as a whole.

It also provides me with an invaluable restorative opportunity to add to those I currently engage with, which include providing some pedagogic value and insight to those tasked with preventing (or at least reducing) financial crime and to the wider academic community."

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Why do I support this All-Party Parliamentary group? Put simply, I can summarise it in three words: transparency, honesty and integrity. The key principles that should govern any financial institution, and financial services in general; and that’s exactly the kind of thing this APPG wants to achieve.

Despite the fact that I have not been a victim of any scam or the misconduct of any financial institution, it does not mean that I have not an interest in transparency within the financial services. However, I have been aware first hand of misconduct within the sector.

It is my belief that accountability is key when creating a corporate culture of integrity and transparency.

My interest in the APPG comes from my professional background as a forensic accountant specialising in fraud prevention and detection and fraud investigation as well as financial crime, and as an expert witness, with a general background in the accounting profession.

The work of the APPG is invaluable as well as ambitious with a very valid purpose and mission; I am very pleased to be supporting it as a member of the Secretariat.

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"I’ve volunteered to be part of the Secretariat Committee for the APPG on Personal Banking and Fairer Financial Services because I have spent eight and a half years and counting trying to resolve a complex financial services fraud, the underlying cause of which was, I believe, a mix of poor regulations and unsatisfactory performance and transparency and accountability of the regulator. During that time I have also examined many other cases of misconduct and poor customer treatment and helped the victims where I've been able to do so, in return gaining insights from them. It seems to me that there's a huge task to be performed to fix the regulatory environment, which is why I favour a process of working with supportive parliamentarians to help them understand the nature and extent of the problem and develop solutions, where necessary through legislative change. A former journalist and the holder of an MBA from a triple-accredited business school, I believe that I bring a mix of communication and analytical skills that could be useful to the group."

Dr Nicholas Morris is an Adjunct Professor at La Trobe Law School, Melbourne; and a Visiting Professor at the China Executive Leadership Academy, Pudong, China and the Hindu University of Indonesia. Previous academic posts include Adjunct Professor, UNSW Law and Justice, Sydney; Visiting Fellow – Balliol College and The Martin School, Oxford; Fellow - University of Melbourne; and Visiting Professor - City University Business School, London.

Nicholas has over 40 years’ experience advising companies, governments and international agencies, in UK, Australia, Europe, China, SE Asia and the Middle East, on financial regulation, health and social support systems, and the financing of essential infrastructure. In recent years he has focused on regulatory and other reforms needed for sustainable development, in both developed and developing countries.

Nicholas also led a team at Oxford to examine how the trustworthiness of the financial system could be improved, after the Global Financial Crisis, which led to the book “Capital Failure: Rebuilding Trust in Financial Services” (Oxford University Press, 2014, 2016). More recently he has published “Management and Regulation of Pension Schemes: Australia: A Cautionary Tale” (Routledge, 2018).

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"I have volunteered to be part of the APPG because as a member of a regulated Trustee Pension scheme I have been failed by the directors of that scheme to adhere to their basic fiduciary duty of care to protect my interests and those of my beneficiaries. The regulators have failed and continue to fail to respect their statutory duty to protect the interests of the consumers. It is time for change."

“Throughout an almost thirty year career in financial markets working for many of the world’s largest banks, I’ve acquired the ‘coal face’ experience that makes me a member of a club that is significantly more exclusive than I understood it to be. Namely, those that knew what the reality is and was, as opposed to the illusion so successfully created and presented by so many. And perhaps more exclusively, those that were prepared to speak up and expose this reality. All too often I have seen the illusion triumph over the reality, and almost inevitably because the wrong questions were asked, or the wrong allegations or pleadings put forward, and for no other reason than it was not known or understood, nor could it be. I hope to be able to use this ‘coal face’ experience to help the APPG get to the heart of the reality, expose the issues and, more importantly, help establish the solutions."

"I am delighted to assist the Secretariat in its important work. One of the worst aspects we have uncovered is that no one in the UK authorities really wants to know about financial crime due to defective regulation. I aim to bring insights from my experience as chair of the Premier FX Claimants Committee who had £12.3 m stolen by an authorised payments institution regulated in the UK. The firm was unlawfully speculating with client money, money laundering and running a Ponzi scam for 12 years. Premier FX created havoc and misery for 245 victims many of whom were Brits living and working overseas and stole their pension funds and life savings.

Their misfeasance was reported to the bank and regulator multiple times but was not taken seriously until the claimants engaged their MPs in their campaign for repayment of their stolen funds. After presenting evidence to the FCA of regulatory and banking failures to engage in due diligence, skill and care in monitoring and supervising an authorised firm our money was repaid by Barclays Bank 4 years later. We are grateful to the FCA for investigating and fining Barclays, however, no employees in the firm or bank were prosecuted, banned or fined and continue to work in the FS industry.

I  encountered in our campaign many slippery shoulders and “its not our remit to listen or investigate” and concluded there are too many organisations not doing their statutory duty of protecting consumers, who are systematically not enforcing the regulations.

“Failure to act” has to be made a criminal offence for both individuals and organisations who fail to act to protect the public from unlawful and harmful behaviour.  The FCA’s comprehensive exemptions from civil and criminal liability are preventing it from being an effective and real regulator and this protection of the regulator needs to be re-examined."

I am a qualified Forensic Accountant and a former seasoned police detective.  I spent a significant part of my policing career investigating financial crime in particular money laundering and complex fraud.  Over the years I have had frequent and regular interaction with the banking sector and regulators such as the Financial Conduct Authority.  I consider that I have a wealth of experience amassed over many years, working within the public sector (the police in the UK and internationally), Government Departments (BEIS as a member of their Counter Fraud Team) and more lately in the Private Sector.  All of which have caused me to have frequent contact with banks and regulators.  In my private practice I specialise in the investigation of the financial abuse affecting vulnerable adults, predominantly the elderly. 

On numerous occasions I have had cause to question the practices of high street banks who in my opinion (informed by my experience), have failed to provide effective support to their vulnerable clients.  I have recently been successful in overturning a decision made by a high street bank in such a case in the form of a complaint.  The matter was escalated to the Financial Ombudsman Service, who agreed with my evidence provided to them and recommended that this particular bank compensate the estate of the victim for the loss.

I am pleased to volunteer some time and effort int helping to support the work of this important APPG – I am fully supportive of its aims and objectives and am proud to be a member of its Secretariat Committee.

“I’ve volunteered to be part of the Secretariat Committee for the APPG because after I was a victim of a major investment scam recommended by my bank manager, I made it my mission in life to understand how such scams work, how the perpetrators almost always get away with them and how to help others get compensation. That gave me an intimate “criminals” view of how to operate and maximise such fraud, avoid being caught and do it again. For the past 9 years I have helped over a thousand victims and uniquely know the ways of stopping such personal and financial damage to hundreds of thousands of people that need to be brought to the attention of politicians.”

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"I have volunteered to support the work of the APPG on Personal Banking and Fairer Financial Services because I firmly believe that the APPG is the best forum to encourage service providers to resolve historic shortcomings and deliver excellent banking services to personal customers in the future; specifically addressing the challenges of Authorised Push Payment Fraud (APPF)."

“Roger Mullin is a former MP, a former chair of an APPG and is currently involved with two other APPGs.”

"I’ve volunteered to be part of the Secretariat Committee for the APPG because I would like to see a fairer, more equitable financial system for all; in particular the saving and investing public. I believe it is crucial to have a competent and accountable FCA, subject to the same high standards of conduct and integrity it demands from those it regulates."

"Sebastian A. Leslie Is committed to environmental protection and the improvement of the quality of life for the next generations. He first arrived in Hungary in 1990 as a representative of the Westminster Foundation of Democracy and has had business interests in Hungary and elsewhere in the region since that date. 

As the speaker of the Brexit Party in Scotland for the last general election in 2019 he has shown consistent support for upholding the rights of the nation state both in the UK and in Europe. 

He is a serving Councillor on Aberdeenshire Council and has maintained his links with the present generation of Visegrad 4 politicians."

"I have volunteered to support the work of the APPG on Personal Banking and Fairer Financial Services because parliamentarians can make a difference. Many financial services firms have treated consumers unfairly for too long. Parliamentarians can generate debate and encourage the industry, government and regulator to make much needed changes to the financial landscape"

"I’ve volunteered to be part of the Secretariat Committee for the APPG because I have become a key figure in helping to prevent people falling victim to pension fraudsters, having become a victim myself. I lost my entire pension fund; along with over 500 other victims of the Ark Pension Scandal. I then went on to help set up a campaign group. I am also involved in supporting numerous other pension scam victims and pension scam support groups.

I believe I have unique insight and experience in the pensions scam prevention and support space and my relentless campaigning has led to interaction with the House of Commons, the House of Lords and the Financial Conduct Authority”

“I am honoured to be joining the Secretariat for the APPG on Personal Banking and Fairer Financial Services. I have watched closely over recent years as the retail investor has become more and more marginalised. We are now at the point whereby the asymmetries between the Financial Services sector and the individual are unfair and unsustainable. The financial outcomes of those least able to stand up for themselves are being eroded as a result. There appear to be some serious failings in the UK’s Financial Services sector which require urgent action to put it back onto a long-term footing.

Sunil has over 37 years’ experience in asset management, in both traditional and alternative investments, and has been a TTF member from inception. Sunil is currently a Project Director for Punter Southall Analytics Ltd, is a TTF Ambassador, member of the UK Shareholders Association and was until recently a member of the Association of Professional Fund Investors (APFI) Advisory Board”.