On 3 September 2019, the Banking Standards Board (BSB) published the final version of its Statement of Good Practice (Statement) on the certification regime and regulatory references. The Statement is intended to help firms implement the regulatory reference requirement of the Senior Managers and Certification Regime (SMCR) by providing a high-level set of principles and good practice guidance.

The Statement is built on the guiding principles of fairness, proportionality and consistency. The guidance covers:

• good practice when providing regulatory references, which includes information on the role of central functions and data security;
• good practice in obtaining a regulatory reference, which explains the importance of timeliness, why firms may be reluctant to give a references and how to alleviate these difficulties; and
• the type of information to include in a reference, which sets out how to deal with references that contain adverse information; incomplete disciplinary procedures, making a balanced decision on incoming references; and revising regulatory references.