The City regulator must act more decisively at the earliest sign of mis-selling, leading consumer groups are urging. The watchdogs are also calling on the Financial Services Authority to publish the names of offending companies to warn the public.

Organisations such as consumer lobby group Which? welcomed Friday's announcement by the FSA that it would introduce measures to protect customers from financial deals that are poorly designed, badly explained or inappropriately sold.

But Which? and others were also sceptical, saying that consumers had been hit by a series of financial scandals in the past decade and after years of kow-towing to big banks and other firms, the FSA needed to 'demonstrate action'.

'It's not enough to have systems in place to detect when sales routinely go wrong,' says Which? financial expert Dominic Lindley. 'Once the problems are detected, you need swift action. In the past we have had unfolding issues like the widespread mis-sale of payment protection insurance, where the FSA knew what was happening, but did nothing.'

PPIicon - extortionately priced insurance supposed to repay debts if borrowers lost their incomes - was often sold to those who could never claim. Other crises involved FSA-authorised firms such as Cru and Keydata marketing high-risk investments to cautious savers.

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Back up mis-selling ban talk with action, FSA is urged | Mail Online