Banking and Insurance Sectors - UK Regulation

Further to the publication of the Financial Conducts Authority’s business plan, the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) has published its approaches to banking and insurance supervision.  The documents set out the PRA’s expectation of the firms it will regulate and how it will assess firms against those expectations.  The approach will:

• rely on judgement in its supervision of whether firms are safe and sound;
• assess plausible future risks posed by firms, as well as current risks in a forward looking way, as the intention is to intervene where necessary at an early stage;
• focus on the firms that pose the greatest risk to the stability of the UK financial system;
• base decisions on evidence and analysis while maintaining flexibility in approach; and
• engage with the boards and senior management of firms informing its decisions. 

The PRA cautions though that firms should not approach their relationship with the PRA as a negotiation.

The Bank of England has also published its approach to the supervision of financial markets infrastructures.  This sets out the approach to the supervision of securities settlement systems, central counterparties and recognised payment systems.  Section 3 sets out some supervisory priorities for the Bank, and Section 4 describes how Bank supervisors will engage with supervised institutions in practice.

A memorandum of understanding has also been published setting out how the Bank, the PRA and the FCA will co-operate in the supervision of these infrastructures.

RELATED LINKS

PRA Banking

http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Documents/praapproach/bankingappr1304.pdf

PRA insurance

http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Documents/praapproach/insuranceappr1304.pdf

Bank of England Supervision of financial markets infrastructures

http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/financialstability/Documents/fmi/fmisupervision.pdf

Mem of understanding

http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/about/Documents/mous/moumarket.pdf