The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) announced the appointment of Edinburgh pensions and insurance veteran Maggie Craig as the Head of Department, Scotland — a new role created to increase the FCA’s presence in Scotland.

The FCA office in Scotland is based in Edinburgh and now has 80 employees.

Craig joined the FCA in 2014 and is Head of Insurance and Pensions Policy. She will take up her new role in September 2017.

She has more than 20 years’ experience in the Scottish financial services industry.

Before joining the FCA, Craig held a number of roles at ABI (Association of British Insurers) including Director of Scottish Affairs, Acting Director General and, latterly, Director of Financial Conduct Regulation.

Prior to joining the ABI, Craig was head of public affairs at Standard Life and pensions development manager at Aegon, according to reports.

FCA chief executive Andrew Bailey said: “This is a significant step and underlines our commitment to our presence in Scotland.

“Maggie brings to the role a large amount of experience and knowledge including established stakeholder relationships which will stand her in good stead for developing the FCA’s presence in Scotland.”

Craig said: “Our continued presence in Scotland is extremely important and through developing a new strategy we’ll be able to maximise our impact.”

In 2013, the FCA became responsible for the conduct supervision of all regulated financial firms and “the prudential supervision of those not supervised by the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA).”

The FCA says it has “an overarching strategic objective” of ensuring the relevant markets function well.

It says: “To support this, it has three operational objectives: to secure an appropriate degree of protection for consumers; to protect and enhance the integrity of the UK financial system; and to promote effective competition in the interests of consumers.”