On 3 December 2021, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published Consultation Paper 21/35 ‘Quarterly Consultation No 34’ (CP21/35).

In CP21/35 the FCA proposes:

• Chapter 2 – Minor amendments to the Enforcement Guide to reflect the EU Exit Passport Regulations. Changes will provide information about when the FCA are generally likely to consider using the power under the regulations and who the decision maker will be.
• Chapter 3 – Amendments to chapter 9 of the Market Conduct sourcebook (MAR 9) to include wind-down guidance when a data reporting services provider wishes to cancel its data reporting service authorisation. The FCA have also set out their proposed MAR 9 Annex 4 cancellation form, which includes a requirement to provide a wind-down plan.
• Chapter 4 – Changes to regulatory technical standards (RTS) 22 as onshored to remove the requirement to report certain Securities Financing Transactions (SFTs) under UK MiFIR. The FCA is proposing to widen the existing exclusion of SFTs from reporting under UK MiFIR to also include SFTs where the counterparty is a member of the European System of Central Banks or Bank of England, effective from 31 March 2022.
• Chapter 5 – Consequential changes to chapter 8 of the Supervision manual (SUP 8) to align with the revised procedure for making decisions on waiver applications. The FCA plan to remove references to the oversight of a staff committee.
• Chapter 6 – Amendments to FCA forms in line with the interpretative guide on completing forms after the UK’s withdrawal from the EU. The changes will be implemented on systems such as RegData by no later than end of March 2022.

The deadline for comments on chapters 2, 3, 5 and 6 is 10 January 2022 and the comments for chapter 4 is 17 January 2022.