FCA TO IMPLEMENT BREXIT CHANGES

If you read this column each week, you’ll know how pleased I was two weeks ago to complete an application to join the FCA after finding a whole set of brand new forms – published in May 2021. You’ll also know just how depressed I was to see that about one third of the application referred in some way to EEA related legislation, opt outs, passports and permission profiles.

Things that only make sense to what Jeremy Clarkson calls “the eight year olds” in Brussels or Strasbourg.  So a trace of optimism this week perhaps for the announcement below.

“Britain’s finance watchdogs should be handed power to amend regulations policing the sector without political interference”, a parliamentary committee said on 6 July 2021, lending support to ‘light-touch’ scrutiny of rule-setting.

The House of Commons Treasury Committee said that the FCA should be in charge of making amendments to EU rules.

This means that MPs will no longer need to amend or pass new legislation every time regulators want to make changes.  “The incorporated measures should be written into the regulators’ own rulebooks so that they can easily change them,” the Committee said.

So the FCA is now charged with unfettered right to change the rules.  Let’s hope that is good news.

charlie.palmer@ifac.eu

July 9th 2021