Britain sets financial watchdog standards to keep City competitive. On Tuesday, Britain’s finance ministry requested input on defining regulator targets to enhance London’s post-Brexit competitiveness as a global financial center and UK growth.
New York’s fierce rivalry in corporate listings and Amsterdam’s surpassing London as Europe’s biggest stock exchange post-Brexit has pressured UK financial watchdogs to relax standards.
The government denies lowering international standards or limiting watchdog independence.
On Tuesday, the government stated it would set quarterly “metrics” for the Financial Conduct Authority and Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Authority to hold them responsible for their expanded powers.
The financial sector views the new competitiveness remit as vital to more flexible and proportional regulation. The ministry has additional powers to order regulators to publish information as it decides on a rule.
“The government agrees that clear and regular public metrics to measure performance against are an important part of the transparency that is crucial for effective scrutiny and accountability,” the ministry said in a Tuesday public consultation document.
It said the submission request would help regulators decide what indicators to disclose.
“Properly implemented, this will be a key piece of the puzzle to ensuring that the regulators’ new growth and international competitiveness objective helps keep the UK a world-leading international financial centre,” said Miles Celic, CEO of TheCityUK.
The London Market Group, representing insurers, said rapid measurements were needed to compare UK standards to worldwide competitors, especially for company authorization and approval times.
Ashurst lawyer Etay Katz said UK watchdogs had a big and expanding burden.
“Setting performance metrics will not aid genuine and sustainable progress and at worst will encourage regulators to ‘game’ the system,” Katz warned.
Comment Template