On 30 July 2020, HM Treasury published a Policy Statement providing an update on its proposed approach to bringing forward certain amendments to the onshored Regulation on packaged retail investment and insurance based products (the PRIIPs Regulation) in order to avoid consumer harm and provide appropriate certainty to industry once the UK ceases to be bound by the EU regime.
The proposed amendments target only the most pressing concerns with the PRIIPs Regulation and are intended to ensure that UK retail investors are provided with more appropriate PRIIPs disclosures. In the longer term, HM Treasury intends to conduct a more wholesale review of the disclosure regime for UK retail investors. This review will explore, for example, how to harmonise the PRIIPs regime with the requirements set out in MiFID II.
HM Treasury intends to make the following changes to the onshored PRIIPs Regulation:
- An amendment enabling the FCA to clarify the scope of the PRIIPs Regulation through their rules.
- An amendment to replace ‘performance scenario’ with ‘appropriate information on performance’ in the PRIIPs Regulation.
- An amendment enabling HM Treasury to further extend the exemption currently in place for Undertakings for the Collective Investment in Transferable Securities (UCITS) funds.
HM Treasury intends to legislate for these amendments when parliamentary time allows.
