On 5 February 2021, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published a report titled ‘Implementing Technology Change’, which sets out findings from its review into how financial services firms manage technology change, the impact of change failures, and industry practices to help reduce the impact of incidents resulting from change management. Continue reading
Tag: Financial Conduct Authority
HMT consultations on financial promotions: approving promotions and promoting cryptoassets
HM Treasury has announced two consultations on possible changes to the UK financial promotions regime:
- a consultation on limiting the scope of firms that can approve financial promotions of unauthorised persons; and
- a consultation on extending the financial promotions regime to include unregulated cryptoassets.
The deadline for responses to both consultations is 25 October 2020.
These consultations reflect the continued focus by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) on marketing and the related risks to consumers, particularly following the mini-bond scandal, as well as the continued focus on the regulation of fintechs and cryptoasset technologies. Continue reading
FINTECH REGULATION – WHAT’S COMING UP?
With fintech being a rapidly developing and increasingly regulated area, we have created a timeline of key UK and EU regulatory milestones to watch out for over the coming months and years.
Fintech regulation – what is in the pipeline?
Here is our latest timeline covering key UK and EU regulatory developments in the pipeline. Continue reading
Bridging the FinTech gap: What dividend should we seek from regulatory cooperation across jurisdictions?
Technology-facilitated innovation in financial services, a diverse collection of topics which coalesces under the portmanteau term of “FinTech”, is increasingly in the sights of policy-makers, whether at global, regional and national or state levels. Keen observers will have noted a proliferation of consultation documents, statements, warnings, speeches and more emanating from national regulators. Some of these recent publications address specific FinTech applications. Indeed, there has been a veritable deluge of material on Initial Coin Offerings over just the past few months.
Meanwhile bodies such as the Financial Stability Board (FSB), the influential Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS), and others, both within and without the traditional regulatory cohort, are making some efforts towards setting out (or attempt to setting out) some universal principles or truths which may address an increasingly gaping hole in the global regulatory policy canon.
We are at an early stage in the development of policy responses to FinTech, and it is perhaps unsurprising that globally agreed standards have yet to emerge. Continue reading
Further developments in Distributed Ledger Technology
On 15 December 2017, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published the Feedback Statement (FS) to its April 2017 Discussion Paper (DP) DP17/03 on Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT). Continue reading
Fintech regulation – what is on the horizon?
With fintech becoming such a fast-moving and increasingly regulated space, we have created a timeline of key UK and EU regulatory milestones to watch out for over the coming months and years. Continue reading
Scaling up the Senior Managers and Certification Regime: Thinking Ahead
The UK Senior Managers and Certification Regime (SMCR) is being extended to almost all financial services firms authorised by the FCA. This will include many firms in the payment services, peer-to-peer lending, crowdfunding and robo-asset management sectors. The plans are currently under consultation and we expect the regime to be implemented towards the end of 2018.
The SMCR was introduced in response to the 2008 banking crisis and the LIBOR rigging scandal to enhance individual accountability and create a culture of risk management and compliance. It has applied to banks, building societies and certain investment firms since March 2016, with a modified regime for insurers (known as SIMR). It is anticipated the extended regime will largely follow the current SMCR.
This post considers the extension of the SMCR and suggests some next steps for newly ‘in scope’ firms. Continue reading
Regulators around the world become more vocal regarding the potential risks associated with ICOs
On 4 September 2017, seven major regulators governing the finance and technology sectors in China (collectively, the Chinese Regulators), jointly published an announcement prohibiting initial coin offerings (ICOs) in China. Continue reading
Crowdfunding – regulatory headwinds on the horizon?
Crowdfunding has the potential to be one of the most positive developments on the financial scene in years, with the potential to ‘democratise’ finance and outflank conventional approaches to raising capital in some spheres.