Regulatory Roundup 56 advised that the Bank of England, HM Treasury and the FCA were proposing to undertake a joint review of wholesale markets. Following on from this the FCA has published ‘Wholesale sector competition review – Call for inputs’. For the avoidance of doubt, this published review will not focus on the trading practices that will be within scope of the aforementioned joint review.
The intention is that the review of competition in the sector will identify any areas that might merit further investigation through an in-depth market study. The scope will take in various areas ranging from asset management to prime brokerage – see the schematic on page 10 of the publication. Examples of possible areas of interest include best execution (in passing we are told that we can also expect publication of the FCA’s thematic on this area ‘shortly’ – see Regulatory Roundup 53), transfer agency and cross-selling.
Responses by 9 October are welcome and there is also an invitation to attend – subject to availability – a series of round tables during the consultation period.
