On 4 December 2020, the FCA issued Consultation Paper 20/23: Quarterly Consultation Paper No. 30 (CP20/23).

In CP20/23 the FCA is consulting on miscellaneous amendments to its Handbook to:

• Clarify its expectations for temporary, long-term absences (chapter 2).
• Remove references to collective investment schemes being able to issue bearer certificates, in line with draft Government legislation banning the use of bearer certificates (chapter 3).
• Amend the rules in COBS 4.5.12R to COBS 4.5.15R to narrow the scope of their application to communications which could influence a retail investor’s investment decision (chapter 4).
• Make changes to the minimum levels of professional indemnity insurance cover to align FCA rules with the revised limits as published in Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/1935 amending the Insurance Distribution Directive (chapter 5).
• Make changes to the cancellation form in SUP 6 Annex 6 to improve the cancellation application process (chapter 6).
• Transpose Article 1(16) of the Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive II into FCA rules (chapter 7).
• Seek views from interested stakeholders about whether the Global Precious Metals Code meets FCA codes recognition criteria (chapter 8).

The deadline for comments on CP20/23 is 4 February 2021 (for chapters 3, 4, 5, 7 and 8) and 4 January 2021 (for chapter 6).

The FCA and the PRA invite comments on chapter 2 of CP20/23 by 4 January 2021.

The PRA and FCA propose to clarify their expectations for firms notifying them of when a senior manager takes temporary leave for longer than 12 weeks (long-term leave), for example in cases of parental leave and where the length of absence is not known.