An early Christmas gift arrives for directors of British banks and insurers: a voucher exchangeable for even more quality time with the Financial Services Authority.

The FSA’s latest consultation on changes to the rules for “approved persons” comes wrapped in festive reasonableness. But the not-so-subtle message in the accompanying card is that the regulator will in future adopt a tougher attitude to approval, evaluation and retrospective ajudication of the people who oversee and manage our financial services companies.