The FCA has published its response to a House of Lords Financial Services Regulation Committee report which concluded that the regulators’ secondary international competitiveness and growth objective is being held back by a culture of risk aversion, regulatory uncertainty and inefficiency.
The FCA highlights that it already has work underway, or has completed work, that addresses most of the Committee’s recommendations. Many of these workstreams were outlined in the FCA’s recent second report on the secondary objective, or announced as part of the Leeds reforms, including:
- Reducing authorisation times;
- A new ‘concierge service’, set to be operational by October 2025;
- Assessing administrative costs and reducing data collections;
- Removing duplicative rules to rely on the Consumer Duty;
- Modernising the redress system;
- Reforms to the supervisory model; and
- Pioneering sandboxes and other authorisation and innovation services.
The FCA’s response addresses the Committee’s recommendations, and the regulator commits to reporting within 12 months on progress.