FCA to scale back non-Brexit activities
City watchdog says it faces ‘particularly challenging year’
The UK’s financial regulator said it will have to cut back on some of its regular responsibilities as it prepares for a “particularly challenging year” ahead of the UK’s exit from the EU in March 2019.
In its annual business plan published on Monday, the Financial Conduct Authority said it had to make “difficult and challenging decisions about our priority activities across all business areas that are not related to work on EU withdrawal, including limiting the number of new initiatives we’ve taken on”.
The watchdog has put aside £30m to deal with Brexit preparations over the next 12 months, £14m of which will come from “reprioritising, delaying or reducing non-critical activity”. A further £11m will be paid by the firms that will be affected by withdrawal, with the remainder funded through the FCA’s reserves.
Andrew Bailey, FCA chief executive, said:
We recognise that this year we need to dedicate a significant amount of resource to withdrawal from the EU. As a result, setting our priorities this year has involved a particularly rigorous level of scrutiny and challenge to focus on areas where we see the greatest potential for harm.
Other areas of focus for the coming year include improving firms’ culture and governance standards, fighting financial fraud and improving data security practices.
The FCA added that “we expect our work on the implications of EU withdrawal will continue beyond March 2018, throughout any implementation period …we will closely monitor the progress of negotiations and the potential for any further impact on our cost base”.