U.K. Financial Conduct Authority CEO Andrew Bailey will succeed Mark Carney as governor of the Bank of England, the Financial Times reported.

Chancellor Sajid Javid will announce the appointment as early as Dec. 20, according to the report. Bailey would take over from Carney at the start of February 2020.

Bailey has been head of the FCA since July 2016 after serving for more than three years as deputy governor of the BoE for prudential regulation. The FCA regulates the conduct of about 59,000 financial services firms and financial markets in the U.K. and serves as the prudential regulator for more than 18,000 of those businesses.

News of Bailey's appointment followed the BoE's acknowledgement that a third-party supplier misused the audio feed of a number of press conferences before they had been officially broadcast. The bank clarified that the breach did not involve the release of market-sensitive statements of its policy committees.

The BoE earlier on Dec. 19 kept its key interest rate unchanged at its final monetary policy meeting of the year and downgraded its projection for fourth-quarter GDP growth to 0.1% from 0.2% previously.

Former BoE Deputy Governors Minouche Shafik and Paul Tucker, as well as current Deputy Governors Ben Broadbent and Jon Cunliffe, were also considered for the role, the FT reported. Kevin Warsh, a former member of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board of Governors, and Santander UK PLC Chair Shriti Vadera had also emerged as candidates.