Context
As part of its proposals to reduce regulatory burdens and support growth, the FCA has stated that it is committed to playing its part in supporting economic growth. The FCA now wants to take the opportunity of the Consumer Duty to move to a clear outcomes-based approach to streamline its rulebook, lowering costs for businesses and supporting the competitiveness and growth of the economy. This will all be to support its secondary objective in relation to international competitiveness and growth. Many will see this as an attempt to make the UK financial services markets ‘easier to operate in’.
Key points to note and next actions
In its recently published Statement about the objective, the FCA reminded firms of the seven key drivers of productivity, which it sees as a core contributing factor to both international competitiveness and growth. The FCA will, therefore, include metrics in this regard in its existing outcomes and metrics framework. The published metrics web page merely explains that the metrics are split into four themes, and there are links to separate web pages for each of the themes. There is significant data included within these separate ‘themes’ web pages.
In the report, an Appendix is included to set out how any rules and guidance the FCA has made have advanced its operational and secondary objective, from the inception of the objective to the end of the financial year 2023/24. It sets out how the FCA has put competitiveness and growth at its core, how it wants to help financial firms succeed, and how it will support and drive innovation and enhance trust.