Flying into GlobalCapital’s inboxes on Tuesday morning came an email from the FCA with links to some publications related to the watchdog’s ‘Review of the Effectiveness of Primary Markets’.
One in particular took our interest. A discussion paper entitled ‘The UK Primary Markets Landscape’ features a picture of a man in a suit, standing still, looking off into the middle distance.
With a woman standing some way behind him, possibly trying to work out if the man in question is famous.
He soon might be if the FCA keeps this up. It used the same picture — albeit it had slightly zoomed in so that the nosy woman became a disembodied head — in a consultation paper dubbed ‘CASS 7A & the Special Administration Regime Review’ only last month.
We’re not asking the FCA for artwork that would hold its own in the National Gallery, but surely there must be something better than stock photos for such weighty tomes, and should the models really be stood in the middle of nowhere staring into the void?
A quick search of the latest consultations available on the FCA website shows that photos of what look to be Doctor Who extras hypnotised by an alien force seem to be the decoration of choice for its publications. Although, unlike the two we’ve mentioned, the others at least have pictures of people who seem to be going somewhere.
Well, they have their coats on at least.
We're all for saving the public purse the expense of original photography but we wonder exactly what message a regulator sends when its artistic embodiment seems rooted to the spot and entirely vacant.
After all, one would hope that in dealing with the high speed, complex world of financial markets, the UK could think of a better deterrent than something that fits the description of a scarecrow.