We are delighted to have joined this ground-breaking initiative supporting The Payments Association and other private industry stakeholders in the creation of the Green Paper report examining the potential for Central Bank Digital Currencies, ‘A New Era for Money’. The paper advocates for closer public-private collaboration to advance exploration of a digital currency in the UK, before a real-world pilot of ‘digital pound’ (dSterling).
Regulators and policymakers have left emergency measures behind and returned to their reform agendas. In this piece, Baker McKenzie regulatory experts set out the top ten UK developments for financial institutions and fintechs to watch in 2022 covering: good culture, Consumer Duty, BNPL regulation, crypto regulation, AML regulation, appointed representatives regime, financial promotions gateway, operational resilience, ESG regulation, divergence, Future Regulatory Framework Review.
The FCA has published a consultation (CP21/34) proposing changes to the Appointed Representatives (AR) regime. In parallel, HM Treasury (HMT) has published a Call for Evidence on possible legislative reforms to the AR regime. These papers present significant, wide-ranging changes that have the potential to seriously impact the way that AR arrangements operate, and the burdens placed on principals in particular.
On 7 December 2021, the FCA published its second consultation on the Consumer Duty, setting out more developed proposals for rules and guidance following feedback from its first consultation. The proposals set out in the first consultation have been mostly carried forward, though the FCA has made some important amendments and clarifications in response to feedback received. For more detail on the first consultation, including background to the introduction of a Consumer Duty.
The recent increase in value of cryptoassets as an investment class along with media coverage associated with high profile large investors has resulted in regulators warning investors to be cautious of the associated volatility risk. Against the background of these recent developments, we’re seeing increasing demand for legal advice in this area.
On 21 October 2021, HM Treasury published its much-anticipated consultation on the regulation of buy-now-pay-later products. The consultation arrives nearly seven months after the Treasury confirmed that it would formally consult on bringing BNPL products into the regulatory perimeter “as a matter of priority”.
Financial crime remains at the top of the regulatory agenda across the globe. As responses to the pandemic stabilise, and following some high-profile global incidents, regulators face renewed pressure to manage financial crime more effectively through robust supervision and enforcement. In the October 2021 edition of the City Library’s Compliance Officer Bulletin, our business crime, regulatory and cybersecurity lawyers explore the latest developments in anti-money laundering and financial crime in a series of articles
On 9 September the Financial Conduct Authority (“FCA“) and the Prudential Regulation Authority (“PRA“) published a letter to bank CEOs with the purpose of reiterating expectations of firms when undertaking trade finance activities. The Dear CEO letter addressed both conduct and prudential issues where the regulators consider that improvements are required in firms’ controls. The regulators stressed that “firms need to demonstrate that they have taken a risk sensitive approach to their control environment that ensures the relevant risks are effectively mitigated”, noting that the last 18 months have seen several “high-profile failures of commodity and trade finance firms with significant financial loss”.
On 20 July 2021, the European Commission presented a package of legislative proposals establishing a new framework for the EU’s anti-money laundering and countering terrorism financing (AML/CTF) regime. The package will create an EU-wide AML supervisory authority, establish a new directly applicable single rulebook, and extend the scope and requirements of the regime including, significantly, to all cryptoasset service providers. In this briefing we explore the Commission’s proposals in more detail. We also set out considerations for UK firms, including HM Treasury’s recent consultations on the UK AML/CTF regime
On 22 June 2021, HM Treasury (HMT) confirmed that it will take forward legislation to introduce a gateway for the approval of financial promotions of unauthorised persons. Once the gateway is in place, only firms which have successfully applied to the FCA to approve financial promotions will be permitted to approve the financial promotions of unauthorised persons.