Mapping the contours of contemporary financial services regulation

The article draws on decentred analyses of regulation, which emphasise the fragmentation and hybridisation of regulatory systems, to analyse contemporary financial services regulation, principally in the UK. The analysis focuses on actors, their regulatory capacities, the regulatory functions which they do or could perform, their interrelationships, and the ways in which they are or could be enrolled within the regulatory system. The article contrasts such an analysis with the more familiar 'toolkit' analysis, and argues that the enrolment analysis provides a mapping device which facilitates a more nuanced analysis of the nature of regulatory hybridity and fragmentation, and facilitates debates on the development of the regulatory system. It also provides a critical frame in which to assess the likely effectiveness, the adherence to normative values, and the accountability of the regulatory system as a whole.