The Financial Services Bill was introduced into Parliament on 21 October. The key aims of the Bill are:
- to implement the remaining Basel 3 standards;
- to create a more proportionate investment firms’ prudential regime;
- to clarify and extend FCA’s powers to ensure orderly wind-down of LIBOR;
- to extend the transitional period for third country benchmarks to the end of 2025;
- to create a new overseas funds regime, giving equivalence for retail investment funds and money market funds;
- to ensure long-term market access between the UK and Gibraltar;
- to update the MiFIR regime that regulates “equivalent” third-country firms to give FCA appropriate oversight powers;
- to improve the functioning of the onshored PRIIPs Regulation and allowing further extension of the UCITS exemption;
- to update the MAR regime;
- to extend criminal penalties for market abuse to 10 years’ imprisonment;
- to increase transparency requirements for beneficial ownership of trusts;
- to complete the EMIR REFIT process;
- to amend the Banking Act to ensure the Financial Collateral Arrangement Regulations provide better certainty to markets;
- to streamline the process for cancelling firms’ authorisation;
- to make the appointment of FCA’s CEO subject to a fixed, once-renewable, 5 year term;
- to enable the Government to impose a statutory debt repayment plan on creditors and provide for a charging mechanism by which creditors will contribute to the funding of the Breathing Space scheme; and
- to allow “Help to Save” accounts to be transferred automatically into an NS&I savings account when it matures, if it has not been transferred elsewhere.