| Link(s): Business Plan 2021/22 | FCA |
Context
The FCA’s 2021/2022 Business Plan explains how it sees its future role and priorities, how it intends to deliver them and how it will measure its performance in achieving against the objectives and outcomes as set out in the Business Plan. The FCA aims to ensure that it is as transparent and accountable as possible. The FCA will build on these metrics as its transformation progresses to ensure it is responding and adapting effectively to both existing and new challenges.
The FCA sets out its view that numerous forces are transforming the entire landscape of financial services, which means that the Regulator needs to change the way it does things, and in some cases what it does. The FCA acknowledges that it is becoming a different organisation, and that it must continue to become a forward-looking, proactive regulator. Through the pandemic, the FCA acted to stand up for consumers and businesses. This year, it will direct its energy towards longer-term challenges; it will be “more innovative, more assertive and more adaptive”.
Key points to note
How the FCA is changing:
- The FCA sets out that the environment in which it is operating is changing rapidly. This reflects economic, technological and social changes, as well as the challenges of the pandemic and the UK’s exit from the EU.
- The FCA needs to transform so that it can deliver its goals.
- We have 2 key tasks – to make markets work better and to stop and prevent serious misconduct that leads to harm.
The FCA’s consumer priorities
- Enabling consumers to make effective investment decisions
- Ensuring consumer credit markets work well
- Making payments safe and accessible
- Delivering fair value in a digital age
- The new Consumer Duty
The FCA’s wholesale market priorities
- Reviewing its rules in primary and secondary markets
- Completing the transition from LIBOR
- Tackling market abuse and financial crime
- Improving asset management and non-bank finance
- Ensuring people can choose appropriate pension products
- Raising standards in the Appointed Representatives regime
Priorities across all markets
- Diversity and inclusion
- Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG)
- Our international priorities
- Fraud strategy
- Financial resilience and resolution
- Operational resilience
Next actions
The FCA’s web page in relation to the Business Plan includes some useful summary information that firms should review and understand, to be aware of the ongoing transformation of the Regulator and the issues it is seeking to address.