The Five Year Strategy

The FCA has launched their five year strategy “to deepen trust, rebalance risk, support growth and improve lives”. They have outlined four key goals:

• Fight financial crime by establishing a presence in the US and Asia-Pacific
• Be a smarter regulator by reforming how they regulate and rebalancing risk
• Support growth by embracing a technology first approach
• Help consumers by increasing trust through a smart data revolution

The Payment Systems Regulator Will be Abolished

The government has announced that the Payment Systems Regulator will be abolished and its remit absorbed by the Financial Conduct Authority. This news comes during the Government’s focus on growth through removal of red tape.

Shortly after the announcement, the FCA’s Chief Executive made a statement, commending the work of the PSR in making payment systems ‘safer, more competitive and increasingly innovative’.

Nikhil Rathi emphasised that the time is right to streamline regulation, with the FCA intending to work closely with the Government, PSR and Bank of England to ensure a smooth transition.

The ‘Name and Shame’ Policy Plans Will be Abandoned

Under long-standing pressure, the FCA has abandoned plans to ‘name and shame’ firms that are under investigation. Rather, the FCA will aim to balance maintaining trust in the regulator while exercising discretion.

Instead of ‘name and shame’, under which firms would have been given ten days’ notice before publication, the regulator will publish firm names only in exceptional circumstances, as is currently the case. Its final policy will be published in June.

Updates to the Consumer Duty

The FCA aims to reduce the administrative, financial and time burden of businesses following the introduction of the Consumer Duty. The regulator’s plans include:

• Retiring more than 100 pages of outdated guidance
• Withdrawing over 100 supervisory publications
• Reviewing prescriptive disclosure rules to give firms more flexibility
• Revisiting rules for businesses with customers outside of the UK