View from City Road: A pointless ban by the SIB

Whatever the merits of the Personal Investment Authority, it is a fair bet that Roger Levitt has not wasted his time pondering whether he should seek to join. The reputation of the now infamous life insurance salesman is in such tatters that no imaginable regulator could possibly allow him to pass a fit and proper test.

This being the case, it is hard to fathom what the Securities and Investments Board hopes to achieve by making Mr Levitt the subject of its first banning order. His disqualification, under section 59 of the Financial Services Act, makes him no less employable in an investment business than he was last week. The SIB might as well have banned Robert Maxwell.

If the SIB chairman, Andrew Large, wants to prove his toughness, he will have to pick harder targets.