Regulatory Initiatives Grid

The Financial Services Regulatory Initiatives Forum (“the Forum”) has published its Regulatory Initiatives Grid, which sets out its regulatory pipeline. The Forum is comprised of the Bank of England, Prudential Regulation Authority, Financial Conduct Authority, Payment Systems Regulator and Competition and Markets Authority, with HM Treasury attending as an observer member. 

The aim of the Grid is to help firms understand and plan for regulatory initiatives that may have a significant operational impact, by setting out the planned regulatory workplan over the next twelve months.

The Grid contains a broad range of regulatory initiatives over the near, medium and longer terms. The current priority is responding to the impact of COVID-19, so there are relatively few new initiatives in the near term. In addition, some consultation periods have been extended to the start of October 2020, such as Consultation Paper 19/32 (Building Operational Resilience). In the medium term, there will be regulatory initiatives around the end of the transition period, associated with the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union.  In the longer term, there will be the introduction of a new prudential regime for investment firms, currently regulated under rules made for banks and building societies.

The initiatives relevant to the investment management sector include MiFID II product governance assessments, the introduction of a new equivalence regimes for retail investment funds and a review of the UK fund’s regime covering direct and indirect tax.

A copy of the Grid  as of May 7, 2020 is available here.