The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has today published its Mission, which gives firms and consumers greater clarity about how the FCA prioritises its interventions in financial markets. Alongside the Mission, the FCA has published its Business Plan for 2017/18 and Fees consultation. For the first time, the FCA has also published its Sector Views, which highlight the issues and developments the FCA sees in the sectors it regulates. Together, these documents provide greater clarity about how the FCA operates and more transparency about the way it makes decisions.
The FCA’s Mission is to serve the public interest through the objectives given to it by Parliament. The Mission document explains how this will affect the decisions the FCA takes. It explains the intervention framework for the strategic decisions the FCA makes, the reasoning behind its work and the way it chooses the tools to do it. Over the next year, the FCA will also publish further documents which will explain how it carries out its main activities – authorising and supervising firms, taking enforcement action, encouraging competition and influencing market design – and how the Mission affects these activities.
Business Plan
The annual Business Plan gives details of the specific areas of work the FCA is prioritising for the next year. These priorities are based on a combination of the intelligence gathered through the Sector Views and the FCA’s intervention framework. Key pieces of work identified in the Business Plan include:
• supporting UK Government to prepare for the UK’s withdrawal from the EU
• launching a campaign to encourage consumers to make a decision about Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) ahead of the August 2019 deadline
• examining the issue of vulnerable consumers
• continuing work on high-cost credit
• considering the issue of long term savings and retirement outcomes
Fees
The FCA is consulting on fees for regulated firms for the 2017/18 financial year. These fees are used to cover the cost of the FCA’s regulatory activities, with fees for individual firms based on the areas of business they undertake.
Andrew Bailey, FCA Chief Executive commented: ” Our Mission is to serve the public interest through the objectives given to us by Parliament. The Mission gives firms and consumers greater clarity about how and why we prioritise, protect and intervene in financial markets. To do this we will continue to make difficult decisions. When we make regulatory judgements, we will be more transparent about how we reached them as we know that this is something our stakeholders want. The consultation demonstrated the desire of our stakeholders to get involved in a discussion about the role of regulation. Those attending our Mission conference and those responding to our consultation were all keen for us to build on this work and deliver change that increases the transparency of our processes and decision making. I am grateful to the 184 organisations, firms and individuals who took the time to give us their views. Their comments have provided critical challenge in important areas and useful confirmation in others. Both have been equally valuable in clarifying our final approach.”
