Speaking at the Council of Mortgage Lenders’ annual lunch in London last Friday, Davies said further delay on mortgage regulation from the Financial Services Authority and the European Commission would increase “uncertainty” and therefore cost.
He said: “I therefore strongly support the view that the authorities need to lay their egg as soon as possible. There will off course be two eggs – one from the FSA and one from the European Commission.”
Davies also predicted that tighter controls on self-certification mortgages would have to form part of incoming regulation, as “there have been some abuses in that area”.
But he added: “It may seem that regulators have a licence to kill, the risk is that they actually do kill things like the mortgage market and politicians should, I think, be careful what they wish for.”
Outgoing CML director general, Michael Coogan, added that the trade body would be “engaging intrusively” at the European level on behalf of the UK mortgage industry after seeing the EC’s proposals for the mortgage market published last week.
