Regulators must at least consider whether they have a part to play in judging the ethics and business culture of the firms they oversee, Hector Sants, the chief executive of the UK's Financial Services Authority, said on Thursday.

Sants, who will soon join the Bank of England as its deputy governor in charge of prudential regulation, said at an event in London that the crisis had changed the old paradigm, in which regulators had no role in judging ethics. "When I joined the FSA, I was told by