Hector Sants, Chief Executive of the Financial Services Authority, has unveiled plans to toughen up protection for consumers over financial products. Sants - who recently announced he is to step down from his job - says the FSA needs to stop risky products being sold, rather than just pay out compensation when the damage has already been done.

Sants, who joined the City watchdog in May 2004 as managing director of wholesale and institutional markets, said that he had always only intended to serve three years in the post. Before he goes, he is keen to push proposals through that give consumers better protection when buying mortgages, pensions and investment products. In doing so, he hopes to restore public trust in the financial services industry after mis-selling scandals including personal pensions, endowment policies, split capital investment trusts and payment protection insurance, some of which predate the FSA.

The FSA chief says the regulator must now vet risky products before they go on sale to the public.

"[We need to] analyse more comprehensively what individual firms are up to, and get more involved in the design stage [of financial product development]", he insisted, adding that the FSA would not be "pre-approving" every product on the market, as there were simply too many of them.