-Repeats Version Transmitted At 2030GMT Thursday
-Says UK Must Influence – As Much As Poss – EZ Integration Push
-Minus Banking Union, Some Fiscal Integration EZ Can’t Succeed
-If EZ Reforms Not Poss, UK Shld Support Controlled EZ Breakup
-Comments Show Turner Setting Out Stall For The Top Job At BOE

By David Thomas/Will Wilkes

LONDON (MNI) – Financial Services Authority Chairman Adair Turner
and one of the front-runners in the race to become the next governor of
the Bank of England has suggested that the Bank’s main monetary policy
tool – Quantitative Easing – may become less potent over time.

Turner says that there may be a need to deploy more innovative
policies in the future in order to heal the financial system and get the
economy moving again.

The FSA boss also signaled that he is likely to take a much more
vocal approach to influencing developments in the euro zone if he gets
the top job at the BOE, throwing his weight behind efforts to create a
euro zone Banking Union as well as some degree of fiscal integration.

In a speech at Mansion House in the City of London, Turner said QE
may be subject to “declining marginal impact”.

“Quantitative easing alone may be subject to declining marginal
impact, the economy facing a liquidity trap in which replacing private
sector holdings of bonds with private sector holdings of money has
little impact on behaviour and thus on demand. So optimal policy also
needs to include a willingness to employ still more innovative and
unconventional policies,” Turner said in his speech.

Turner referred with approval to the panoply of policies put in
place by the BOE and FSA in June/July to counter the threat to the UK
financial sector from the intensifying euro zone crisis.

Liquidity insurance, measures to boost bank lending, ease
requirements for liquidity buffers and boost asset purchases formed a
multi-faceted policy approach then.

The FSA chief suggested that we could see a more coordinated
approach to monetary, regulatory and liquidity policies in the
future.

Turning to discuss the ongoing eurozone sovereign debt crisis,
Turner said that in order to survive, the currency union needs a banking
union and a greater level of fiscal integration.

“If the Eurozone is to succeed it will have to pursue what George
Osborne described last July as the “remorseless logic of integration”,
with a common fiscal back stop for banks that cannot be resolved without
tax payer support, with mutual deposit insurance, with banking
supervision centralised under the authority of the European Central
Bank, and with some category of joint Eurobonds emerging as the
undoubted risk-free asset,” Turner said.

“In other words, what has come to be labelled a ‘Banking Union’,
plus some fiscal integration. Without such union and integration the
Eurozone cannot survive,” he added.

Referring to the full launch of the Financial Policy Committee next
year with an array of new macroprudential policy tools at its disposal,
Turner stressed that these new tools would need to be used well.

Turner said that the BOE MPC, FPC and FSA would also need to “be
open to further policy innovations – if we are to overcome the
deflationary headwinds we face”.

And while he stressed that the UK would not become part of the euro
zone Banking Union, Turner made clear he would take a much more hands-on
approach to influencing events in Europe – within the limits of what
could be achieved by the UK.

“And we will need to support from outside and influence as best we
can the redesign of the Eurozone, to ensure that our domestic efforts
are not undermined by headwinds from abroad”.

Turner goes further than top BOE officials have in the past when he
makes clear he is open to an orderly euro zone break up if the measures
needed to make the single currency successful are ‘politically
unattainable’.

“We have an enormous national self-interest in the Eurozone either
taking the 20 steps required to succeed, or, if that is politically
unattainable, dissolving in a controlled rather than chaotic fashion. We
need to use what limited influence we have to help achieve the best
possible way forward.”

The main candidates to take over from King when he steps down next
summer are Deputy Governor Paul Tucker and the author of the Vickers
report on UK bank reform John Vickers. Former civil service chief Gus
O’Donnell had been a prominent contender but has ruled himself out
recently. RBA Governor Glenn Stevens has also been mooted.

Interviews with shortlisted candidates are expected to be starting
shortly, but tonight’s comments amount almost to a public interview for
the job, with Turner setting out in broad terms how he would
tackle the key challenges currently facing the BOE as it seeks to clear
up the debris of the financial crisis and get the economy and banking
system moving again.

UK Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne is reported to be
likely to announce the name of the new governor in his Dec 5 Autumn
Statement.

–London newsroom: 4420 7862 7492 email:
dthomas@mni-news.com/wwilkes@mni-news.com

[TOPICS: M$B$$$,MGB$$$,M$BE$$]