The City watchdog has been accused of 'apathy and complacency' in its regulation of building societies during the boom, by one of its former supervisors.

Vince Cable, Treasury spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, has written to Lord Turner, Financial Services Authority chairman, asking him to investigate the claims which he called a 'scathing indictment' of regulatory failure.

The MP was contacted by the whistleblower just days before Moody’s, the credit ratings agency, cut its ratings for nine building societies on Wednesday.

The former supervisor claimed that FSA management ignored a warning three years ago that risky self-certified loans had been bundled up and sold to building societies that thought they were buying conventional mortgages.

Financial Times