THE British chancellor, Mr Gordon Brown, kept up the new Labour government's cracking pace of reform yesterday by unveiling sweeping plans to overhaul the regulation of Britain's financial services industry.

Mr Brown told parliament he planned to transfer responsibility for supervising banks from the Bank of England (BOE), the central bank, to a strengthened Securities and Investment Board (SIB).

The reform will make the new SIB responsible for regulating all banks, securities firms and insurance companies. Mr Howard Davies will step down from the BOE to chair the SIB.