THE Securities and Futures Authority, the City regulator in Britain, is planning to change its rules to make it easier to discipline senior directors of investment banks that lose money as a result of inadequate controls.

The SFA is responding to criticism of its failure to take any action against Mr Peter Baring and Mr Andrew Tuckey, the former chairman and deputy chairman of Barings, the merchant bank that collapsed last year under £830 million sterling of losses.

It has drawn up draft changes to rules that would place far greater responsibility for management of risk on the "senior executive officer" of member firms. It is likely to start consulting all firms on these changes shortly.

Two of Barings' senior managers have been banned from working in the City in similar posts for three years. However, the SFA found that neither Mr Baring nor Mr Tuckey breached rules.

Mr Tuckey was senior executive officer of Baring Brothers & Co, the merchant banking arm of Barings. The fraud carried out by Mr Nick Leeson, the former Singapore derivatives trader, partly took place there.

Mr Nick Durlacher, chairman of the SFA, said yesterday that Mr Tuckey would not necessarily have faced discipline under a revised set of rules.