Quick Summary: Regulatory Initiatives Grid

Issue 276 | 28 February 2022

Financial Services Regulatory Initiatives Forum

In November 2021 the Financial Services Regulatory Initiatives Forum published an updated version of the Regulatory Initiatives Grid which is intended to help regulators identify and manage peaks in demand and give firms a clearer idea of the major upcoming initiatives across the main financial services authorities.

In this edition of Payments:Unpacked Extra! we provide a quick summary of the latest Regulatory Initiatives Grid.

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Financial Services Regulatory Initiatives Forum.

In 2020 HM Treasury’s established a Financial Services Regulatory Initiatives Forum.

The Forum is comprised of the Bank of England (including the Prudential Regulation Authority), Financial Conduct Authority, Payment Systems Regulator and Competition and Markets Authority, with HM Treasury attending as an observer member.

The Forum is a joint initiative which is intended to help regulators identify and manage peaks in demand and give firms a clearer idea of the major upcoming initiatives across the main financial services authorities.

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Regulatory Initiatives Grid

In November 2021 the financial regulators published an updated Regulatory Initiatives Grid.

Introducing this latest version of the regulatory initiatives grid the FCA and the BoE state:

We are embarking on an ambitious agenda to help develop a more effective and efficient UK regulatory model. Many of these changes will enhance firms’ and the economy’s competitiveness and ease operational burdens in the long term, or are meeting important Government priorities such as on the transition to a net zero economy. That is why after careful consideration, we are satisfied that the burden of the current regulatory pipeline, whilst significant, is appropriate.

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Key initiatives in the regulatory landscape

The regulatory authorities have identified a number of key initiatives in the regulatory landscape:

Source: FCA

The gird outlines the lead regulator, a description of the initiative, key milestones, indicative impact and engagement quarters for 134 initiatives - the latest (November 2021) grid can be found here: Regulatory Initiatives Grid.

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Payment services and systems and market infrastructure

Of most interest to Payments:Unpacked readers is the initiatives relating to Payment services and systems and market infrastructure.

This section of the grid contains 12 initiatives which are aimed at promoting competition, innovation, and protections in payments to improve the quality and security of services provided to consumers and businesses.

There are two new initiatives in this Grid. These are HMT’s consultation on introducing a Senior Managers and Certification Regime (SM&CR) for Financial Market Infrastructures (FMIs) and the BoE/HMT’s new joint Central bank digital currency (CBDC) Taskforce.

Three initiatives included in the previous Grid have been completed. HMT’s Cashback without a purchase initiative came into effect two months after Royal Assent of the Financial Services Act 2021, the PSR’s review of Consumer Protection in Faster Payments was published on 11 October and HMG issued its response to the Payments Landscape Review on 11 October 2021, concluding the Review.

The 12 initiatives are: