Martin Wheatley, the managing director of the Financial Services Authority (FSA) and chief executive designate of the incoming Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), plans to implement a “three pillar approach” to supervision of the industry.

They will cover the areas of firm-specific regulation, event driven work such as on collapses and failures of financial institutions or services, and themed work looking at the potential build-up of industry-wide problems.

The regulator will also be keeping a keen eye on the media to keep informed of any warning signs, said Wheatley.

“What journalists write and tweet is an important data source for us. In the past we’ve been quite reliant on firm-specific data. Now we will be widening that out to source more information.”

Wheatley said he wants to implement a “cultural change” at the regulator where his team “has the curiosity to pursue what it should be pursuing”, and not wait until “things blow up”.

“I want to move earlier, deal with problems more quickly than in the past,” he said.

He admitted the regulator’s work on the mis-selling of payment protection insurance (PPI), which has cost the industry billions of pounds to rectify and has engulfed some of the biggest names in high street banking, took “six to seven years” before it was a problem the FSA could deal with.

“The industry would want us to step in earlier when there’s a problem to avoid [PPI- type] clean-up costs,” he said.

He said consumers have a responsibility to understand what they buy, but that the industry should put consumer outcomes “at the heart of everything they do”.

“We’ve got to put the bad stuff behind us and get back trust in institutions.”

He also wants to promote the good practices in the financial services industry.

“I would like to talk more about the good practices in the market. We will hopefully give people comfort by dealing with the bad practice. It’s a difficult balance [between publicising the good and the bad].”

Wheatley said he is currently recruiting for a director to head up the new regulator’s competition team, part of the FCA’s widened remit under the Financial Services Bill.