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UK regulator says bank system past danger point-reports

LONDON- The global banking system is past the danger of systemic meltdown following government intervention, but there will still be economic consequences, the chairman of Britain's financial watchdog said on Friday.

Adair Turner also told newspapers that regulators should sweep aside their previous assumptions as they look for a more effective global regime in the wake of the credit crisis and should take a tougher line.

"Although there are still going to be macro-economic consequences of what has occurred, I think we are past the point of the danger of where we were last week, where we could have had a fundamental systemic meltdown of the core plumbing of the world financial system," Turner told the Financial Times.

He told the Guardian newspaper that the world was on course for a recession. But he said that there is no change of a 1929-1933 depression. "We know the lessons, and we know how to stop it happening again," he was quoted as saying.

Regulators should now engage in a fundamental debate about how to set banks' minimum capital requirements, and monitor their liquidity and pay structures, following state bailouts in Europe and the United States, Turner told the newspapers.

"When you've been through a crisis like this, it's rather sensible to wipe the slate clean in terms of all your previous assumptions," he told the FT.

"We are going to have to return to a rule-driven approach and ideally that should be an international set of rules. And we are just going to have to see how rapidly the world can get back to an agreed set of rules."

Turner also said banks and insurance companies regulated by the Financial Services Authority would have to pay higher fees so the regulator could strengthen its supervision.

"There will be more people asking more questions, and getting more information. There is no doubt the touch will be heavier," he told the Guardian.

"Bluntly, we have been doing supervision on the cheap," he told the FT, adding the FSA would have to pay some higher salaries than it had in the past.