On 19 April 2021, HM Treasury issued a press release regarding the comments that the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak MP, made at the Fintech Week conference.

Key points in the press release include:

• To support fintech firms to scale up, the FCA will take forward a ‘scale box’ – a package of measures to enhance its pioneering regulatory sandbox.
• The FCA will also launch the second phase of its Digital Sandbox to enable firms to test concepts that tackle sustainability and climate change-related challenges.
• The Chancellor backed the creation of an industry-led Centre for Finance, Innovation and Technology and committed to work with regional and national fintech bodies to make it a reality.
• To support private sector innovation, firms exploring how to use technologies like distributed ledger to improve financial market infrastructure will have access to a new sandbox. This new regime will be inspired by the FCA’s sandbox and HM Treasury will work together with the Bank of England and the FCA to deliver this.
• The Chancellor confirmed that the Government will take forward all the recommendations directed towards it by the Listing Review.
• As part of this, the UK will consult on changes to its prospectus regime this summer, to ensure the rules are not overly burdensome but provide investors with the information they need, tailored to the type of transaction.
• Ambitious reforms to the UK’s wider capital markets regime will also be consulted on this summer, including proposals to delete the share trading obligation and double volume cap.