FCA Business Plan 2017/18
Of Relevance to:
All firms
The FCA has published its Business Plan for 2017/18 – which also includes the ‘Risk Outlook’ (page 16) which analyses the wider context the FCA works in and the risks it sees in the market.
The Business Plan focuses on the following seven sectors (including some, but not all, planned FCA activities) which capture all the types of firm regulated by the FCA:
Investment Management
- Further work on liquidity in funds (see Regulatory Roundup 85)
- Final report coming out of the Asset Management Markey Study (see Regulatory Roundup 82)
- Custody banks
Wholesale Financial Markets
- Preventing market abuse
- Competition in investment and corporate banking (see Regulatory Roundup 81)
- Primary markets (see Regulatory Roundup 86 re IPOs)
Retail Investments
- Investment platforms
- Auto advice
- P2P/crowdfunding (lack of awareness of ‘client money’ requirements)
- CFDs (see e.g. Regulatory Roundup 83) – we can expect follow-up work particularly on ‘appropriateness’
- Completion of project assessing suitability of advice and disclosure
- FAMR final guidance (see Regulatory Roundup 74)
The Business Plan also considers:
- Pensions and retirement income
- General Insurance and protection
- Retail Lending
- Retail Banking
In addition the FCA has identified the following cross-sector priorities:
- Firms’ culture and governance
- Financial crime and anti-money laundering
- Promoting competition and innovation
- Technological change and resilience
- Treatment of existing customers
- Consumer vulnerability and access
On the topic of “Technological change and resilience”, the Business Plan confirms that the FCA has created a dedicated Cyber Specialists team to oversee the way that regulated firms manage cyber risk.
Separately the FCA has published its ‘Sector Views’ covering the above seven sectors and which feeds in to the determining of priorities.
