Ruth Doubleday’s Post

We want to find out where we can simplify our retail conduct rules and guidance to help reduce the burden on firms and support growth. Have your say by 31 October 2024. #FinancialServices #FinancialRegulation #CallForInput #EconomicGrowth #ConsumerDuty

Ever been particularly frustrated by a specific rule in the #fca Handbook? Now could be your chance to do something about it... As part of the new Labour government's plan for financial services titled "Financing Growth" released in January 2024, Labour confirmed it supported reducing the volume of the more than 10,000-page Financial Conduct Authority Handbook, stating that the volume and complexity could obstruct competitiveness and growth. With the launch of this review following the introduction of the #consumerduty, firms now have the opportunity to give the FCA feedback on how the FCA Handbook could be simplified. This obviously will not be a return to pre-financial crash style #regulation, but could be an opportunity for the regulatory system to become more efficient and allow for more innovation. I would encourage all firms to participate in the review. #financialservices #financialregulation

FCA Consumer Duty: good news from the Financial Conduct Authority today... a chance for firms to help streamline and reduce their burden in meeting consumer duty requirements... and a potential to enhance innovation? Input requested for 31st October... scary stuff 🎃👻 #consumerduty #productgovernance #distributiongovernance

Calling all firms in the retail financial services space. The FCA is looking at potentially simplifying some conduct of business rules for retail business in light of the more general #consumerduty expectations. This could include looking at older rules such as some of the more prescriptive distance marketing requirements which originally stem from EU law and may benefit from updating. Have your say by responding to this #callforinput. Reach out if you’d like to discuss!

This doesn't matter. If the authority want to take action against you, even if your activities arent against the law, rules, conduct, principles or conditions, they will. Simplifying, or relying on guidance which informs high level rules, like prins, threshold conditions or cobs is useless. it should simply say , "How can we make it easier for ourselves to prosecute smaller firms." Take their guidance on trading names, its a one page text on their website, doesn't correspondence to any specific rule, or high level prins or TCs. Read it. the law needs precision and more importantly forseeability, guidance is advisory, rules are obligatory. regulators have discretion to enforce guidance, this discretion can lead to variability in enforcement meaning the consequences are less predictable, lacking adequate forseeabillity. But considering those facts, the authority feels justified dragging a firm through the mud. Hopefully, the judgement is in our favour on this point, but if its not I guarantee, it will be used as a precedent moving forwards against many other firms. "if we said it, it's a rule, regardless of whether it says guidance on it and even if that guidance doesn't correspond to any specific rule and even if their is no actual law or rule, stating what can and can't be on the Register."

The Financial Conduct Authority’s Call for Input on areas of retail conduct regulation that can be simplified in light of the implementation of the #consumerduty marks the start of another wave of potential reform in the retail environment. Some key points:  1️⃣ Acknowledging the work already underway through initiatives including the SRF and CCA reform, the FCA wants to address areas of complexity, duplication, confusion or over-prescription with limited or no consumer benefit (particularly when measured against CD requirements). 2️⃣ The FCA invites comments on rules or guidance which can be simplified to rely on high-level rules, or have interactions with other rules that can be clarified. In particular, the FCA will explore the ways that the Duty interacts with the broader Handbook; but also areas where detailed, tailored and prescriptive requirements could be replaced by high-level requirements where they are more appropriate, for example due to the complexity of existing provisions, the desire to support innovation in the market or where there has been (or there may be) change in the way products and services are delivered that are better addressed by this approach. 3️⃣ The FCA is focused on the potential for this exercise to catalyse innovation and support its secondary competitiveness objective. Some may, however be concerned at this further push towards an outcomes-focused regulatory framework and what it might mean for legal / regulatory certainty. The Consumer Duty is certainly not ‘one and done’… Norton Rose Fulbright

Financial Conduct Authority is calling on industry to identify rules which could be removed or simplified if they overlap with the Consumer Duty.  This is great news. It's something we at Innovate Finance have been calling for since 2021 - when we said: "Outcome-based rules will not promote innovation if they are superimposed on top of existing prescriptive rules. In advance of the introduction of the new Consumer Duty, we recommend that there be a thorough, post-Brexit review of FCA retail consumer regulation to identify existing prescriptive rules which could be removed when the Consumer Duty is introduced." We were delighted when Tulip Siddiq and Rt Hon Rachel Reeves adopted this in their review of Financial Services 'Financing Growth' earlier this year. Now it is being taken forward by the regulator. Sometimes the best things come to those who are persistent and patient! We will be working with @Innovate Finance members to respond to this review. Let's make the most of this huge opportunity to simplify and streamline the rule book - to achieve better outcomes for consumers and support innovation and growth. The FCA have said "We particularly want to address potential areas of complexity, duplication, confusion, or over-prescription, which create regulatory costs with limited or no consumer benefit. We also want to include appropriate flexibility in our rules to be responsive to future changes and innovation." What would you put on the list? #Innovation #Growth #ConsumerDuty #OutcomebasedRegulation

Good to see feedback is being sought and the first sentence is certainly encouraging: We want to see where we can simplify our retail conduct rules and guidance. We must go back to the heart of the duty which places the need for firms to deliver good outcomes for customers, which of course is a given. The tendency is to create endless amounts of measures to demonstrate adherence to the standards. I would start by simplifying sourcebooks and providing practical support to aid implementation.

We must admit, when #ConsumerDuty was first launched by the Financial Conduct Authority, our view was that we were already doing as much as we could to create good outcomes for our clients. However, when we look back at what we have achieved as a result of grasping Consumer Duty as an opportunity to view things through fresh eyes, we have already implemented some significant improvements. 😊 #FinancialPlanning #SafePairOfHands STEP – Advising Families Across Generations Society of Later Life Advisers The Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment (The CISI) LIBF Personal Finance Society

You might have noticed a slight tweak recently in my approach to the 🙈🙉🙊 policy being adopted by Pensions La La Land in respect of #Pensionwashing and the £600bn Financial Harm scandal affecting ~2.8m SMEs and ~10m Workers. My concerns are now moving towards Compliance and Legal Firms who I believe are deploying similar commercial tactics to those deployed by Post Office lawyers in purposefully covering up Horizon system failures. The Horizon Post Office Inquiry has lifted the lid on the jaw dropping #CultureFailure within Government supported enterprises like the Post Office. Law Firms saying they are consumer centric but then failing to act in the Best Financial Interest of their own internal workforce is a reliable Red Flag 🚩to signal that consumer harm may be continuing at Firms being advised. Whilst the Post Office Scandal has affected thousands of SPMs, Auto Enrolment has led to 45m pension pots, where I anticipate up to 9 in 10 have suffered serious financial harm due to systemic failures. Six months ago, before ITV aired Bates vs The Post Office, tens of millions of workers wouldn't have dared believe they could be victims of a mass financial harm scandal, caused by Pension Computers that said 'No' and covered up by unethical #Pensionwashing. Over the past few weeks Culture Failure within Law Firms has come into the public domain and my customers and I have come to the same conclusion. Unethical legal folk and compliance firms are instructing Firms not to engage with requests to review the Effectiveness, Efficiency and Relevance of their Default Fund approach for those Most at Risk (MaR). I could be wrong, but those Red Flags 🚩 haven't failed me yet. Just Saying 🤷♂️ #BUOM #10MillionMaR #RDay 🎃 #ConsumerDuty