Barclays appoints ex-regulator as compliance head

LONDON (AP) -- Barclays has appointed the former chief of Britain's financial regulator to the new role of head of compliance at the scandal-hit U.K. bank.

The move, announced Wednesday, will see Hector Sants switching sides from heading the Financial Services Authority to overseeing all compliance activities in all regions in which Barclays does business, the bank said.

"I left the FSA with the intention of finding a role which would allow me to put into practice the experience I have gained in both the public and private sector," Sants, 56, said in a statement.

The bank was hit by scandal earlier this year when British and U.S. regulators fined it a record 290 million pounds ($467 million) for manipulating a key interbank lending rate known as LIBOR.

Sants stepped down as the FSA's chief executive in June, days before the announcement of the fine. The FSA said that he was not involved in setting the fine on Barclays.

In September he released correspondence with Barclays to a Treasury committee investigating the matter. The released letters showed that he had raised concerns about the culture at Barclays in 2010.

Barclays said that Sants, who is now on "garden leave" from the FSA, will serve as Barclays' first point of contact for governments and regulators around the world in his new role.

He will take up the post on Jan. 21 and report directly to Barclays' group chief executive, Antony Jenkins, who replaced Bob Diamond at the top after the LIBOR scandal pushed several members of the bank's board to step down.

Jenkins has been keen to see his bank become what he called the "go-to bank" for setting compliance standards.

Sants worked in investment banking before he joined the FSA in 2004.