Bank of England steps up monitoring of Lloyd's whistleblowing systems

The Bank of England has stepped up its monitoring of Lloyd's of London's SOLYD.UL whistleblowing systems, the central bank said on Monday, after reports this year about sexual harassment and bullying at the 330-year old insurance market.

The Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) said the insurance market had agreed to extra checks after informing the regulator its processes had been ineffective.

The PRA said it was first made aware of issues at Lloyd's in February when the market told the regulator its only anonymous whistleblowing channel for staff had not been operational since October 2017.

Other whistleblowing channels were available while the anonymous hotline was down, the PRA said.

Lloyd's also failed to provide an annual whistleblowing report as expected, the regulator added.

Lloyd's has voluntarily agreed to additional requirements, including enhanced reporting of whistleblowing cases and training requirements for senior staff, the PRA said.

Following press reports of widespread misconduct at Lloyd's, the market published results of a survey in September that found nearly one in 12 employees working in the market had witnessed sexual harassment there in the past year, while a quarter had witnessed excessive drinking.

Lloyd's has tried to improve standards of behaviour in the market this year, including introducing life bans from its building and a bullying and harassment hotline.

The Lloyd's market employs nearly 50,000 people and has 99 syndicate members offering insurance in specialist areas from ships to sculptures.

"We are extremely disappointed by this failure in our internal controls, which serves to remind us all about the need for constant vigilance when it comes to these essential services," a Lloyd's spokesman said.

"Lloyd's employees can feel confident that we now have all the right mechanisms in place for them to report any wrongdoing, and that these systems are regularly monitored."

Cutting interest rates appears to stimulate more than just the economy with Bank of England researchers saying an extra 14,500 babies were born in 2009 after it cut borrowing costs during the financial crisis.

The

Bank

of

England researchers wanted to see if the influence of central bankers went as far as families considering whether or not to have a baby.

They estimated that for each one percentage point reduction in benchmark interest rates, birth rates rose by 5% among families paying adjustable-rate mortgages that go up or down along with the Bank of

England's main interest rate.

"On average for the UK, a onepercentage-point decline in the policy rate increases birth rates by 2%," they said in a paper published recently.

In contrast with Britain, the birth rate in US fell during the period studied by the researchers, something they linked to the prevalence of fixed-rate mortgages in the US and the impact of property price declines.

"Our descriptive comparisons with the US suggest that if more families had been able to obtain a lower interest rate, the US might not have experienced as severe of a 'baby bust' int he Great Recession," they said.