Beyond Brexit

Treasury Committee

Financial services post-Brexit – Treasury Committee publishes FCA written evidence – 2 March 2021

The House of Commons Treasury Committee has published the FCA’s written evidence in response to its inquiry into the future of financial services post-Brexit.

The evidence discusses a number of topics, including opportunities for the UK’s financial services sector, development and scrutiny of financial services policy-making and current challenges facing the regulators. The FCA also made some proposals as part of giving its evidence, which included how government policy and UK regulators can facilitate the emergence of fintech, on the government’s financial services priorities when it negotiates trade agreements with third countries and on the regulatory barriers that apply to third countries.

Specific points made by the FCA include that:

• future trade agreements should respect the FCA’s statutory objectives and regulatory framework, including its autonomy. Market access should be grounded in shared commitments to international standards and equivalent regulatory outcomes, and each trade agreement should be tailored to include appropriate regulatory safeguards commensurate with the level of market access secured;
• changes to the way in which Parliament sets the overall policy direction for financial services gives rise to a number of important policy and practical considerations. For example, a sector-based approach to setting policy in legislation through mechanisms such as additional regulatory principles could be challenging as this would artificially split the regulated sectors and does not reflect the way firms and markets operate; and
• it supports the proposal to empower the regulators to maintain and make firm-facing rules from retained EU legislation but emphasises that the legislative programme to achieve this is likely to take several years and should not be left incomplete.

FCA written evidence

Financial Conduct Authority

Temporary permissions regime – FCA publishes new webpages – 3 March 2021

The FCA has published three new webpages on the temporary permissions regime (TPR):

• landing slots for firms in the TPR – this webpage sets out the next steps for firms once they have received a ‘landing slot’ to apply for full authorisation in the UK. The page links to the material firms should read before submitting an application;
• cancelling a temporary permission – this webpage set out the steps for cancelling a temporary permission if the firm is in the TPR or the supervised run-off regime and no longer has business requiring it to have a UK permission; and
• supervising firms in the TPR – this webpage explains the role and approach of the FCA in supervising firms in the TPR.

Landing slots for firms in the TPR webpage

Cancelling a temporary permission webpage

Supervising firms in the TPR webpage