The FCA has announced that it has issued an information request to the majority of firms with with-profits business to help it carry out a multi-firm review of the sector. The purpose of the review is to allow the regulator get a better understanding of the range of practices being adopted by with-profits firms.
The FCA has published a statement that provides an update on its policy work on contract for difference products (CFDs) and Consultation Paper 16/40: Enhancing conduct of business rules for firms providing CFD products to retail clients.
The FCA has published a speech given by its chief executive Andrew Bailey at the BBA Retail Banking Conference. The speech is entitled reflections from the FCA.
Highlights in the speech include:
The European Commission has published long-awaited legislative proposals on creating a pan-European Personal Pension’s Product (PEPP). The PEPP regime will provide the building blocks for the creation of a voluntary single personal pension product that can be marketed by providers on a pan-European scale. The new regime is intended to sit alongside existing national products rather than replace them, but the Commission hopes the new product will also play a role in building up those national markets where provision of private pensions is still lacking.
Constructive and timely exchange of information is a key requirement of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) standards and cuts across a number of its recommendations and immediate outcomes.
The European Banking Authority (EBA) has published a report setting out its conclusions following an assessment of innovative uses of consumer data by financial institutions. The report looks at both risks and potential benefits of this innovation and identifies a number of requirements under EU law applying to financial institutions, which mitigate many of the risks identified by the EBA.
The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (Basel Committee) has issued a consultative document, Simplified alternative to the standardised approach to market risk capital requirements.
On 28 June 2017, the FCA published its long awaited final report on its asset management market study. The final report, which is over 100 pages long plus five annexes, confirms some of the findings set out in the FCA’s interim report published on 18 November 2016, in particular the FCA’s assessment regarding competition in the asset management industry, communications with investors and practices in the investment consultancy sector generally.
In summary the FCA found that:
There has been published an ‘I’ item note from the General Secretariat of the Council of the EU to its Permanent Representatives Committee asking it to approve the final compromise text regarding the proposed Regulation amending the Regulation on European venture capital funds and the Regulation on European social entrepreneurship funds.
The Council has also
The Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI) and the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) have co-published a consultative report, Framework for supervisory stress testing of central counterparties (the framework).
The framework is designed to support supervisory stress tests (SST) conducted by one or more authorities that examine the potential macro-level impact of a