FCA has published an update to its strategy for its platforms portfolio of firms. It first set out its major concerns in February 2020, and has written to firms to update them on its focus going forwards. Its key concerns relate to:
- unavailability of services following IT outages and operational issues resulting from the surges in retail investor activity during the pandemic. It has published its policy statement PS21/3 on the operational resilience standards it expects of firms, and stresses the need for firms to build appropriate controls with the right impact tolerance, with strategies that will respond quickly and effectively to operational disruptions. It stresses that firms should have available on request to FCA a self-assessment document showing how they meet the requirements, which take effect from 31 March 2022;
- SUP 15 notifications: FCA notes that it would expect a notification for material service degradation incidents such as operational disruptions, and believes it is not currently being notified of incidents that it should be told about;
- transfer times: FCA is pleased with the progress of STAR and it now looking at firms seen as outliers;
- Brexit: FCA expects firms to have fully considered and addressed the consequences of Brexit by now;
- Diversity and Inclusion: FCA encourages firms to contribute to its Discussion Paper