On 14 October 2021, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published a speech by its new Executive Director for Markets, Sarah Pritchard, in which she discusses the key themes for the FCA which are, partnership, priorities and future predictions. The speech is entitled ‘Partnerships, priorities and predictions for the future in the pensions market’.
The FCA believe that effective pensions regulation relies on deep partnership between the many regulators and policy makers that operate in the pensions space. When discussing partnership, Ms Pritchard expressed:
“It is only by working seamlessly together as one regulatory family, in collaboration with the industry, that we can deliver the consistent pensions landscape that the public expect.”
The FCA have 3 main priorities:
- Firstly, helping ensure that consumers have the right level of advice and guidance to help them make informed decisions.
- Secondly, seeing that pension products are well designed and represent value for money.
- Thirdly, making the pensions market work well, without scams.
The FCA have pledged that they will continue working towards becoming a more innovative, assertive and adaptive regulator. The FCA Business Plan contains further information regarding the FCA’s future predictions and priorities and how they intend to deliver them. Among other things to support more long term investing, the FCA has recently consulted on proposals to introduce a Long Term Asset Fund (LTAF), which is likely to be of interest to pension funds. Rules will be introduced shortly on this, to establish a new LTAF framework before the end of the year.
