Greg Kilminster
Head of Product - Content
FCA outlines 2023 milestones
The FCA (Financial Conduct Authority) has issued a press release outlining its accomplishments in 2023. Key milestones include:
- New regulations
The Consumer Duty and the Sustainable Disclosure Requirements and investment labels have come into force. Furthermore, the FCA has issued new regulations requiring banks and building societies to fill gaps in local cash provision, ensuring that people can access cash if required.
- Reviews
The FCA has conducted a multi-firm review into the retail banking sector and shared its findings with firms. The review highlighted areas of good practice, including firms’ approaches to identifying customer harm and remediation planning. The FCA is also working with new parliamentary committees on enhanced accountability mechanisms to reflect its greater policy-making powers following the UK’s departure from the European Union.
- Enforcement and supervision
The FCA has banned certain providers of debt advice from receiving referral fees from debt solution providers. It has also removed over 10,000 potentially misleading adverts and sent out 2,243 warnings about unauthorised firms and individuals. Following enforcement investigations, the regulator imposed fines totalling £52,802,900 this year.
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FCA ends temporary permissions regime for EEA firms
The FCA (Financial Conduct Authority) has announced that the temporary permissions regimes (TPR) designed for EEA firms and investment funds to transition to the UK’s full regulatory regime following Brexit has ended.
However, the FCA has informed firms that certain arrangements will remain in place to allow some EEA firms to orderly wind down their UK business within the financial services contracts regime. Additionally, the temporary marketing permissions regime (TMPR) will remain in place until 31 December 2025.
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HM Treasury seeks feedback on climate change disclosures
HM Treasury has released an exposure draft to seek feedback on new financial disclosures related to climate change based on the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). These guidelines are applicable to the UK public sector but are also useful for sectors and industries like financial services, which may be impacted by climate-related issues.
These requirements build on the TCFD-aligned disclosure application guidance for Phase 1 of TCFD implementation, which was published in July 2023. It mandates that in-scope reporting entities include TCFD-related information in their annual reports, either by complying or explaining their reasons for non-compliance. The required information includes the TCFD Risk Management recommended disclosures and the TCFD Metrics and Targets recommended disclosures.
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Hong Kong authorities propose regulation of stablecoin issuers
The Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau (FSTB) and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) have jointly issued a public consultation paper seeking feedback on a legislative proposal to regulate stablecoin issuers. The proposal incorporates feedback gathered from market and public consultations, international standards, as well as local market conditions and needs.
The key proposals include the introduction of a new licensing regime, allowing only specified licensed entities to offer fiat-referenced stablecoins (FRS) to retail investors and prohibiting unlicensed and non-specified licensed entities from advertising FRS issuance.
The proposal also gives the authorities the necessary powers to adjust the in-scope stablecoins and activities to remain relevant to the rapidly developing virtual asset market. Additionally, the proposal includes a transitional arrangement to facilitate the implementation of the regulatory regime.
The deadline for feedback is 29 February 2024.
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Credit Suisse Fined $3.9m by MAS for relationship managers misconduct
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has imposed a civil penalty of $3.9 million on Credit Suisse AG (Credit Suisse) for its failure to prevent or detect misconduct by its relationship managers (RMs) in the Singapore branch.
In contravention of the Securities and Futures Act 2001 (SFA), the RMs provided clients with inaccurate or incomplete post-trade disclosures, resulting in clients being charged spreads above bilaterally agreed rates for 39 over-the-counter (OTC) bond transactions. The RMs:
- made false statements to their clients regarding the executed interbank prices and/or spreads charged; and,
- omitted material information that the spreads charged were above the agreed rates.
Investigations revealed that the bank had failed to put in place adequate controls to prevent or detect the RMs’ misconduct.
Credit Suisse also compensated its affected clients as part of the civil penalty settlement.
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