Moves by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and other regulators to detect crime earlier through intelligence gathering and co-operation would see a finance company sector style meltdown acted on much earlier if it was to happen again, says the SFO's acting CEO Simon McArley.

In a Double Shot interview with interest.co.nz McArley noted there had been plenty of rumours of problems within finance companies around before they started collapsing.

"If we'd applied an intelligence led approach at that point, and if that had worked across all the regulatory agencies, we may well have been able to intervene at a much earlier point," McArley said.

Asked how much earlier McArley noted that when he was working as a lawyer in 2001-02 there was already talk that all was not right with some finance companies.

"What we want to do is to be at that position, not necessarily conclusively drawing any conclusions, but being able to get together with our sector partners - the FMA (Financial Markets Authority) and other organisations and say 'look we need to have a close look at this. We need to keep an eye on what's happening'," said McArley.

"I think we're well placed to do that. Both the FMA and ourselves have invested quite heavily in that intelligence part of the equation, so we're well on the way to it. But it's something we can keep working on."

However, he said this didn't necessarily mean the authorities, if they were operating as they are today back in 2001-02, would have acted that early against finance companies.

"We can't with any certainty say what might have been in a different world. But we definitely think if that situation was to reoccur, or a similar situation was to occur, we'd be much better equipped to address it now and we'd be much earlier into the process of intervention," said McArley.

Full article: http://www.interest.co.nz/personal-finance/66517/if-finance-company-sector-type-meltdown-happened-again-authorities-would-be-i