ABSTRACT
Securities and Investments Board (SIB) through a network of SelfRegulatory Organisations (SROs). The role of regulation will be critically assessed before entering into an examination of the specific contexts of each organisation; the banking industry and the life assurance industry. Here, I will discuss the effects of deregulation in terms of competition and the action of the regulators as background to fundamental changes in the nature of banking and life assurance in the UK, as well as the relations between the two sectors. This provides the context for a detailed discussion of the two organisations, which will be referred to here as Buzzbank and Lifelong Assurance. In this chapter, I will detail the major changes in the recent history of each organisation, before looking at the key departments for the purposes of this argument; the IT function in each organisation and the distribution network of Lifelong Assurance. The chapter concludes by summarising the key points of the discussion and tracing the framework for the book as a whole.
