Trade-offs Between Growth and Financial Regulation - NIESR

In the 2025 Mansion House speech, the Chancellor warned that excessive regulation and regulatory complexity risk constraining investment and innovation. Similar debates are playing out across advanced economies, as policymakers reconsider elements of the post-crisis framework in search of competitiveness and growth.

Against a backdrop of heightened macro-financial risks – from stretched asset valuations to stresses in sovereign debt markets – this event will examine the core trade-offs between regulation, efficiency and resilience. We will explore whether simplifying and recalibrating rules can genuinely unlock economic performance, or whether easing safeguards at a time of elevated risk could weaken system resilience.

The discussion will also assess the recent decision by the UK Financial Policy Committee to lower system-wide capital requirements for UK banks. Was this shift justified, and what does it signal about the balance between competitiveness and safety? Finally, we will explore the international dimension: when other jurisdictions contemplate easing, or slow-roll implementation of standards such as the Basel end-game, should the UK follow suit, or chart a different course?

These questions will be tackled in a conversation between John Vickers, leading Economist and Warden of All Souls College at Oxford University and Bloomberg News Senior Finance Reporter Laura Noonan.

This event will take place as part of the series 'Financing Growth, Safeguarding Stability: How Should the Financial Systems evolve?'

The UK is entering a period of profound structural change, with rising demand for long-term investment, shifting patterns of financial intermediation, and new technologies reshaping money and payments. At the same time, macro-financial risk remain elevated and international regulatory standards are in flux. This three-part series examines how the UK’s financial architecture must adapt to support sustainable growth while safeguarding resilience. Bringing together policymakers, academics and market practitioners, we will explore the calibration of regulation, the system’s capacity to finance tomorrow’s economy, and the implications of digital money for monetary sovereignty and financial stability.