“FCA is managing out smaller firms it does not trust, industry says”

Nov 1, 2023 | Financial Services

Are we ‘small firms’ really doomed? Is the regulator plotting our demise by default? The argument is that the rules, particularly the most recent ‘Consumer Duty’ set, are designed for the big players with big compliance departments and plenty of time and money to produce the endless paperwork they require. How can we minnows keep up? And wouldn’t the FCA prefer to send loads of people in to go over the books of a few big boys than to try to visit every Tom, Dick and other Back-Bedroom-Based one man band adviser. The counter, however, is that they perhaps know we small boys are, with only very-occasional exceptions, not the problem; and they can actually rely on us to get on with it and do the decent thing. It’s actually much easier, as has been many-times proven, for bad apples to hide in the middle of large barrels.

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“FCA announces plan to reduce regulatory burden on financial services firms”

“FCA announces plan to reduce regulatory burden on financial services firms”

Our regulator’s latest initiative is to reduce the amount of regulation. It’s become apparent that their previous big initiative, ‘consumer duty’, has made many look at the work they do and clients they look after, and decide that to do the job properly they have to look after less and perhaps charge more for complying with all the detailed compliance the rules require.