The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) today published their Business Plan for 2018/19. This document confirms the FCA’s priorities in financial services regulation for the next 12 months.

The FCA sets out a number of cross-cutting issues that it plans to work on across all sectors this year. Pensions and high-cost credit are given an increased focus, while work will continue around culture, crime prevention and security, and the treatment of existing customers. There is a strong commitment in the Business Plan to deliver the revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2), and work is planned to understand the business models of new financial services providers as they emerge in a post-PSD2 world.

One notable part of the Business Plan is around a commitment to foster innovation. The FCA will continue to allow new service providers to test their commercial and regulatory viability in its regulatory sandbox, which allows innovative businesses to test ideas in a real market environment, and has announced plans to work with other regulators to launch a global sandbox.

Phil Sneade, Manager in Frontier’s financial services team said: “The next 12-months will be especially important for the personal current account market. Following the 2015/16 CMA investigation, the FCA has launched their Strategic Review of Retail Banking Business Models and the High Cost Credit Review has a particular focus on overdrafts. Both of these investigations will report this year, and could lead to significant new remedies. Further, the Business Plan shows the FCA will also review the maximum monthly unarranged overdraft charge set by the CMA, and 2018 is the year providers will be required to publish service quality metrics for the first time, to give customers better tools for comparing different current accounts. The outcome of all these activities could mean major changes to the way in which personal current accounts are offered today.”

Frontier regularly advises firms on issues relating to financial services in the UK and Europe.

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