By Huw Jones
LONDON (Reuters) – Regulators will have to promote the global competitiveness of Britain’s financial sector or could face mandatory reviews of their rules, UK finance minister Nadhim Zahawi said on Tuesday.
He confirmed that a long-awaited financial services and markets bill will be introduced before parliament on Wednesday to “capitalise on the benefits of Brexit and transform the UK financial services sector”.
Bankers have been calling for speedy reforms to bolster London’s attraction as a global centre for finance after Britain’s departure from the European Union.
Amsterdam has already overtaken London as Europe’s top share trading centre, prompting Britain to ease listing rules as it tries to persuade chipmaker Arm to have a UK listing.
Zahawi said the bill, which includes cutting “excessive” capital buffers at insurers to invest in infrastructure, will unlock “tens of billions of pounds”, a step which pits it against a more cautious Bank of England.
The bill also cracks down on financial scams, ensuring vulnerable people and rural areas have access to cash, and introduces rules for using stablecoins, a type of cryptoasset, for payments.
“Consumers will remain protected, with legislation ensuring that victims of scams can be compensated while also acting to protect access to cash for the millions of people that rely on it,” Zahawi told a Mansion House audience in the historic City of London financial district.
The Payment Systems Regulator will have powers to reimburse victims of so-called authorised push payment fraud, or when fraudsters deceive people into sending them money.
As trailed, regulators like the Bank of England and Financial Conduct Authority will be given a secondary objective to promote the global competitiveness of the financial sector, a requirement many regulators across the world already face.
Nevertheless, some lawmakers fear this could herald a return to “light touch” regulation which ended with banks being bailed out in the financial crisis.
Part of the bill shifts laws inherited from the EU to the rulebooks of regulators, making it easier to amend them in future but also giving the watchdogs far more influence at the expense of parliament.
As a counterbalance, the finance ministry had flagged it could grant itself “call in” powers to tell regulators to review a rule, if in the public interest.
Lawmakers have said this should be done sparingly, but Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey warned last week the independence of regulators was part of London’s standing as a global financial centre.
Zahawi said call-in powers were still “under consideration”, indicating some caution.
Caroline Wagstaff, chief executive of the London Market Group, which represents the insurance market, said the new law would turbocharge the sector only if the competitiveness objective for regulators has real teeth.
“The bill absolutely must contain sufficient detail on how the regulators will be held to account on the issue of competitiveness or it will not achieve the regulatory culture change we need, and it will just be words on a page,” Wagstaff said.
Vincent Keaveny, Lord Mayor of the City of London, said a clear commitment is needed on setting out how regulators will focus more on competitiveness, without triggering a ‘race to the bottom’ in standards.
A government-sponsored review on Tuesday set out recommendations to speed up how listed companies can tap markets for extra funding, and Zahawi said all of them have been accepted by the government.
A new Digitisation Taskforce, chaired by former HSBC chair Douglas Flint, will drive modernisation in owning shares by eliminating paper certificates.
The government will also streamline the capital raising process by reforming the Companies Act to shorten rights issues and the processes around them, Zahawi said.
The first annual “State of the Sector” will be published on Wednesday to affirm the government’s “vision for the sector”.
(Reporting by Huw Jones; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
