The UK's Financial Conduct Authority has banned the ex-Rev Paul Flowers, the former chairman of the Co-operative Bank, from the financial services industry.

The ban is for an indefinite period. Flowers, who presided over a spectacular mismanagement of the bank's finances that led to a £1½ billion shortfall and its near-bankruptcy in 2013, was selected as chairman in 2010 on the strength of a psychometric test and an interview with some board members. Three other candidates went through the same process. He had already been a non-executive director on that board. His Reverence, as he then was, ceased to be an 'approved person' on 5th June 2013 and his financial career has been in the doldrums ever since. He ceased to be a church minister last year, although he remains a staunch Methodist.

It is clear from the final notice that the FCA has written to the ex-clergyman (which it has also publicised) that it believes his cardinal sin to be his use of work time and resources for leisure activities. The regulator notes that he sometimes used his work mobile phone to call a premium-rate chat line, in breach of company policy, although he desisted after three weeks of doing this and paid for the calls when the bank complained. On several occasions (the regulator does not say how many, so this may perhaps be a low figure) in February-November 2012 and April-June 2013 he used his work email account to send and receive sexually explicit messages and to "discuss illegal drugs," also in breach of company policy. The FCA is also concerned about other messages he sent that it thinks of as 'inappropriate.'

All this adds up to a failure to pass the 'fit and proper' test against which the FCA measures all approved persons. Its idea of fitness and propriety evidently strays away from misconduct in the workplace, because at point 2.8 in the notice it says that Flowers failed that test because he failed to comply with standards to which he was subject, "including those of the regulatory system."

Flowers had CF2 approval (as a non-executive director) from the FCA throughout his chairmanship in 2010-13. Interestingly, however, nobody required the FCA's approval to be a chairman at that time in history.