Following a research project which explored how voluntary standards markets could improve financial services regulation, we are delighted to announce that the report titled "Backing Market Forces: How To Make Voluntary Standards Markets Work For Financial Services" was released at the end of last month during a joint event with BSI and the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment (CISI) kindly hosted by the City of London Corporation (see the press release).

This report argues that voluntary standards markets, used widely in industries such as food and shipping, could be used more widely in financial services if regulators and legislators promoted a ‘New Combined Approach’ to financial services regulation. In a ‘New Combined Approach’ regulators would favour voluntary standards markets for people, process, and product regulation, and enhance the benefit of using these markets by reducing regulatory costs for companies elsewhere.

The release of this joint BSI, CISI and Long Finance publication received interesting media attention including from Anthony Hilton for the London Evening Standard, Reuters and BBC 4's Today.