Over the course of the last few weeks, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Prudential Regulation Authority have continued to allot landing slots to firms that are currently providing services in the UK under the Temporary Permissions Regime (TPR). These landing slots usually provide a period of 3 months during which time the firm can apply either for re-authorisation (as a branch or subsidiary) or to vary its existing permission.
What do firms need to do when they are assigned a ‘landing slot’?
In order to take appropriate action within the required timeframe, once they receive a landing slot, firms that have not already done so will need to decide in relatively short order how they want to structure their business going forward. This will involve considering questions such as whether they want to:
- Apply for re-authorisation as a UK branch / subsidiary, or look to vary their permissions;
- Continue to provide cross-border services in reliance upon the UK’s Overseas Persons’ Regime; or
- Cease to provide services to UK-based clients altogether, with the option of benefiting from a wind-down under the UK regime for a period of time.
Our legal and compliance teams can help firms with the full range of issues that are arising in this context, including supporting with regulatory applications and conducting detailed legal analyses and assessments.
We have previously published an article on Regulation Tomorrow which highlights some of the practical considerations that firms will need to navigate in this context (see Beyond the temporary permissions regime: is your firm ready? | Regulation Tomorrow) and have a brochure which can be accessed through our website and which provides further information for firms on accessing the UK market after the end of the TPR (see Third country access: Helping international firms to service the UK market).
Regulatory expectations
The FCA has also recently provided clarity on its expectations of firms in the TPR, and the steps it can take where firms fail to meet its expectations.
We have previously published an article on Regulation Tomorrow which might help firms navigating these issues (see TPR: Meeting the FCA’s expectations | Regulation Tomorrow).
