Grand Designs – Next phase in the Digital Pound build

This article was first published in The Banker on 3 March 2023. Final decision yet to be made The world of money is changing. The received wisdom of “cash is king” has long been declining and the world is gradually moving to a more digitised banking space where digital deposits and payments have become dominant; … Read more

SVB UK resolution – where did the powers come from?

At 7am on 13 March 2023 Silicon Valley Bank UK Limited ("SVB UK"), the UK subsidiary of the US bank, was sold to HSBC UK Bank Plc ("HSBC") for £1. The use of these resolution powers was exercised under the Silicon Valley Bank UK Limited Mandatory Reduction and Share Transfer Instrument which came into force at 7am on 13 March 2023. We set out in this post a high-level overview of the powers exercised and what they mean. Read more

FCA publishes new Discussion Paper on updating and improving the UK regulatory regime for asset management

Yesterday, the FCA dropped yet another discussion paper (DP 23/2, the DP); this one announcing that the FCA has turned its mind to further changes that might be needed to the regime governing the UK's 2,600 asset managers. The context here is the forthcoming change in the UK's regulatory framework and the FCA's expanded remit that will flow from this and the eventual shift of firm-facing requirements from statute to regulatory rulebooks. Read more

Operational Resilience – CTPs: What should you be doing about the proposed UK/EU Critical Third Parties Regimes?

Regulators around the world are focused on the operational resilience of financial institutions, financial market infrastructures and the financial system as a whole. One area of significant risk to the financial system are the significant dependencies of financial institutions on Critical Third Parties (CTPs), particularly in relation to the cloud and other Information and Communication Technology (ICT) services. Both the UK and the EU have advanced proposals for new regulatory frameworks in this area. Read more