The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) will mark six months since the implementation of the Senior Managers’ and Certification Regime by providing feedback on implementation so far and proposing measures to further strengthen the regime. The proposed rules will reinforce the importance of individual accountability at the most senior level of organisations.

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by Josée Weydert, Vincent Wellens and Jad Nader

One of the key principles of Luxembourg financial regulation is the obligation of professional secrecy (often referred to as the bank secrecy, the “Professional Secrecy Obligation”) laid down in Article 41(1) of the law dated 5 April 1993 on the financial sector, as amended (the “Financial Sector Act”). Outsourcing arrangements and, in particular, IT outsourcing operations which can lead to the disclosure of confidential data and thus to a potential breach of the Professional Secrecy Obligation are subject to rather strict legal conditions.
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Payday firm, CFO Lending, has entered into an agreement with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to provide over £34 million of redress to more than 97,000 customers for unfair practices. The redress consists of £31.9 million written-off customers’ outstanding balances and £2.9 million in cash payments to customers. CFO Lending also traded as Payday First, Flexible First, Money Resolve, Paycfo, Payday Advance and Payday Credit. Most of the firm’s customers had high-cost short-term credit loans (payday loans) but some customers had guarantor loans and some had both. Continue reading…

by Andrew Bailey

When I look at the issues on the agenda of the FCA with its objective from Parliament to ensure that relevant markets function well, I think that pensions and long-term retirement savings are probably top of the list in terms of their importance to our society. But, of course, only part of what is a very broad issue falls under our responsibility because there are many other aspects of economic and social policy in which the issue falls, and that demands joined up thinking and approaches.
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The Basel Committee today published the results of its latest Basel III monitoring exercise. The Committee established a rigorous reporting process to regularly review the implications of the Basel III standards for banks and it has published the results of previous exercises since 2012. Data have been provided for a total of 228 banks, comprising 100 large internationally active banks (“Group 1 banks”, defined as internationally active banks that have Tier 1 capital of more than €3 billion) and 128 “Group 2 banks” (ie representative of all other banks).
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In this merger, ISDC will become part of British IT service company the Endava group, which gives the company a total combined headcount approaching 3,300 IT professionals, across offices in the UK, Netherlands, Germany and the USA, and delivery centres in Romania, Serbia, Macedonia, Moldova, Bulgaria and Colombia. Continue reading…

A lot of uncertainty and little by way of facts. Brexit poses big challenges – but also big opportunities – for risk managers. Airmic members talk to Jessica Titherington about Brexit and what it means for them. “It feels like we’re in the eye of a storm at the moment,” says Karla Cruickshanks, risk and business continuity manager at law firm DLA Piper. “There was a huge build up to the vote and a lot of activity immediately after the results, and now it’s gone quiet. Everyone is waiting.” And here in lies the problem facing risk managers: Brexit is a huge concern for UK companies but there are very few hard facts amid the noise. Knowing how to tackle it is extremely difficult.
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The Financial Stability Board (FSB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) published the Second Phase of the G20 Data Gaps Initiative (DGI-2): First Progress Report. The progress report updates on work by participating countries and international organisations to address post-crisis data gaps and presents the action plans for each of the recommendations agreed for further work.
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The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision has today published a report for the G20 Leaders at their Summit in Hangzhou on 4-5 September. The report is an update on the implementation of Basel III regulatory reforms since the Committee’s progress report to G20 Leaders in November 2015.  Continue reading…

The Financial Stability Board (FSB) recently published two reports on the implementation of key aspects of reforms to the over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives market. They show that although progress continues to be made, further action is required, particularly on implementing margin requirements and platform trading commitments, and on removing legal barriers to trade reporting and authorities’ access to data held by trade repositories.
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