On 7 June 2022, HM Treasury published the consultation response to its earlier consultation on a senior managers and certification regime (SM&CR) for financial market infrastructures (FMIs).

Key points in the consultation response include:

• The UK Government believes that creating an SM&CR for FMIs remains a desirable and effective means of achieving its objectives of enhancing the accountability of senior managers and improving governance arrangements at FMIs.
• The UK Government wishes to have the option to extend the SM&CR to certain other systemic financial services entities in the future – credit rating agencies (CRAs) and recognised investment exchanges (RIEs). The UK Government will therefore legislate to create a new SM&CR “gateway”, when Parliamentary time allows, which will enable HM Treasury to lay statutory instruments to apply the SM&CR to central counterparties (CCPs), central securities depositories (CSDs), and, in the future, potentially to RIEs and/or CRAs.
• The UK Government intends to legislate, to implement an SM&CR for recognised payment systems and specified service providers. However, this will be taken forward separately to the creation of this gateway, and to a different, longer timeframe.
• At this time the UK Government does not plan to launch any further consultations on the underlying framework for the SM&CR. The UK Government will set out further details of its plans to implement the SM&CR for CCPs and CSDs in due course