The three aims of the new Financial Conduct Authority will be to protect consumers, promote competition and enhance market integrity.
Speaking at the Tax Incentivised Savings Association annual conference yesterday, Ed Harley from the Financial Services Authority said the FCA would be more pre-emptive than the FSA.
Mr Harley, who is head of asset management supervision, said: "The FCA will have new objectives, new powers and a new approach.
"We will move from a reactive to a pre-emptive approach and try to head off issues at an early stage before they become messy problems.
"We will build on the lessons learnt by the FSA, we've seen too much mis-selling which has often occurred when products were designed for a specific market but were sold more widely."

Mis-selling has occurred in several products such as payment protection insurance since the creation of the FSA but Mr Harley said the FCA "won't accept people hiding behind caveat emptor."
He continued: "We will have the power to ban misleading products and publicise that we have done so. This will give greater clarity about our expectations."
He said he hoped the FCA would do focused, quick, thematic work and would be gathering more intelligence and analysis on firms. He also said he hoped the FCA would issue fewer consultation than the FSA but that they would be more concise.