General

Financial Services Duty of Care Bill falls

Parliament has updated its webpage on the Financial Services Duty of Care Bill 2019-20 to indicate that the Bill will make no further progress as the 2017-19 Parliament has been dissolved.

Regulatory fees and levies policy proposals for 2020/21: FCA CP19/30

The FCA is consulting (in CP19/30) on the way it will raise FCA fees from 2020/21. Among other things, the FCA consults on:

  • a proposed charge of £5,000 per year for proxy advisors;
  • income as the basis for calculating periodic fees for Multi-lateral Trading Facilities, Organised Trading Facilities and Recognised Overseas Investment Exchanges;
  • changes to special project fees;
  • an administration charge of £50 for fee-payers requiring paper invoices; and
  • mechanisms for funding free-to-consumer debt advice in the UK, including the debt advice levies for the Money and Pensions Service and the devolved authorities.

The consultation ends on 13 January 2020.

Stablecoins: Council of EU and European Commission draft joint statement

The Council of the EU has published a note sent to it from the Presidency on the topic of stablecoins. The note has annexed to it a draft joint statement from the Council and the European Commission on stablecoins. The draft Joint Statement will be submitted to the Permanent Representatives Committee with a view to the approval by the Council (ECOFIN) at its 5 December meeting.

In their draft statement, the Council and the Commission recognise the potential of the stablecoin initiative to reach a global scale and acknowledge the opportunities of stablecoins. However, among other things, the Council and Commission state that no global stablecoin arrangement should begin operation in the EU until the legal, regulatory and oversight challenges and risks have been adequately identified and addressed.

EU supervisory reporting requirements: European Commission fitness check

The European Commission has published a staff working document on the findings of its fitness check of EU supervisory reporting requirements. It has also published a separate executive summary.

In December 2017, the Commission launched the fitness check to assess whether EU-level supervisory reporting requirements were fit for purpose. Among other things, the fitness check involved a public consultation, a detailed mapping exercise of supervisory reporting requirements and a targeted consultation of national supervisory authorities.

The Commission concludes that the requirements are broadly effective in providing supervisory authorities with the data that they need to fulfil their statutory tasks and mandates. It found that the requirements have improved supervisors' ability to monitor systemic risk, the interconnectedness of the financial system and developments that may pose a risk to financial stability. The Commission also found inefficiencies in the requirements, arising from a lack of clarity and insufficient use of standards, common formats and identifiers. It also found that a lack of consistency in reporting frameworks has arisen from inconsistent wording used in the legislative acts introducing reporting requirements. The Commission flags a number of areas for improvement.

FSB November 2019 plenary meeting

The Financial Stability Board (FSB) has published a press release following a plenary meeting to review vulnerabilities in the global financial system, discuss FinTech developments and ongoing work, and agree its work programme for 2020.

Among other things, the FSB indicates that the plenary discussed developments in cryptoasset markets. Members endorsed an augmented framework for monitoring potential financial stability risks in those markets to take account of the development of "global stablecoin" systems, recognising that these are developing rapidly. In parallel, the FSB is examining regulatory and supervisory issues raised by global stablecoins with a view to advising on additional multilateral responses as needed. The FSB will publish a consultative report on regulatory issues of stablecoins in April 2020.

Members also discussed the FSB's ongoing work on market developments and potential financial stability implications from the entry of BigTech firms into finance and from third-party dependencies in cloud services. The FSB will publish initial reports on these key topics in the coming weeks.

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