| Link(s): | FCA launches 5-year strategy to support growth and improve lives | FCA How we work | FCA Our strategy 2025 to 2030 |
Context
The FCA has launched a new 5-year strategy which sets out the FCA’s vision for the next 5 years, and which will focus on 4 priorities. Each of the above four priorities has its own dedicated section within the Strategy document; the priorities are designed to support each other. The strategy sets out how the FCA will “…become more efficient and effective and make the choices that shape the financial system.”
Key points to note and next actions
The strategy explains that the success of the financial services industry depends on trust in financial firms and the services they provide, and in the FCA as the regulator
The overall aims of the strategy, therefore, are to deepen trust, rebalance risk (regulatory, firm, market, and consumer risk), support growth, and improve lives. The four priorities are:
- Be a smarter regulator; predictable, purposeful and proportionate. The FCA will improve its processes and embrace technology to become more efficient and effective. It will invest in its technology, people and systems (for example, by digitising authorisation processes so it is easier to apply, so follow-up requests are reduced, and so the information the FCA receives is better quality).
- Support sustained economic growth, by enabling investment, innovation and ensuring the continued competitiveness of the UK’s financial services. The FCA will reform rules to ensure they suit the UK market. For example, in areas like commercial insurance and asset management where the UK is a world leader, the FCA will strip out redundant requirements
- Help consumers navigate their financial lives by working with industry to boost trust and product innovation, and by ensuring the right information and support is available for people to take financial decisions. The ‘information and support’ priorities will underpin and increase the importance of firms being able to deliver good consumer understanding and consumer support outcomes.
- Fight financial crime, focusing on those who seek to use the fact they are regulated to do harm. It will go further to disrupt criminals and support firms to be an effective line of defence. The FCA will seek to be “an international regulator for an international market”.
The FCA is accountable to HM Treasury and Parliament and will seek to consistently explain the choices it is making and why, being open about the risks these might present. These choices and risks will be measured by a new set of outcomes and metrics that the FCA has published to support its new strategy (see separate article below)..