Following the publication of the Financial Services and Markets Bill through its first reading in Parliament, Miles Celic, Chief Executive Officer, TheCityUK, said,
“The goal of this legislation must be to stimulate a regulatory culture which is agile, robust, fair, competitive, proportionate and customer-centric. All reforms should seek to maintain the UK’s reputation for high regulatory standards while preventing gold-plating. Where appropriate, they should also support the regulators in driving convergence toward global standards. Ultimately, the reforms need to provide a framework for scrutiny and accountability of the wide-ranging new powers being given to the regulators, both to ensure they meet their statutory and policy objectives and to keep track of how regulatory decisions are impacting UK competitiveness and the economy.
“Maintaining and enhancing the UK’s thriving, internationally competitive financial services sector will help ensure that it can play its full role in supporting important policy goals, like tackling climate change, addressing the cost of living crisis, and levelling up the nations and regions of the UK. We will now study the detail of the Bill, and we look forward to a constructive debate about how best to achieve this widely shared aim.”
Annual cost of regulatory compliance to UK financial services sector exceeds £33.9bn
Our new report with PwC UK finds that UK financial services firms now spend over £33.9bn a year on regulatory compliance, highlighting the need for collective action to simplify and streamline the system.