In June this year, the UK Government published a report by the Taskforce on Innovation, Growth, and Regulatory Reform to pinpoint potential areas of regulatory reform. The idea behind generating this report was clear; the UK needs to find new ways of refreshing its approach to regulation now that they have left the EU. The UK must take advantage of their newfound regulatory freedom as well as providing support for innovation, and growth.
The Taskforce on Innovation, Growth and Regulatory Reform organised dozens of roundtables and meetings with over 125 experts including entrepreneurs, businesses, trade bodies, academics, Think Tanks, and others who shared their insights and ideas. The process required extensive correspondence in the evidence gathering for this report.
“UK regulation should aim to be as simple, agile, and as proportionate as possible. The complexity of the modern economy means a degree of regulatory complexity is unavoidable, but we should aim for a simpler, more streamlined approach. Freed from the obligation to compromise with 27 other countries, our regulatory system should be reformed to better support the needs of UK businesses and citizens.”
Among others, the report identifies 5 key areas for potential reform in financial regulation:
- MiFID II position limits: to make the UK market more appealing, there is a growing need to reduce costs and complexities associated with position limits.
- MiFID II disclosure and transparency requirements: the possibility of removing existing requirements that disclose costs and charges reported to professional investors under MiFID II.
- Market Abuse Regulations (MAR): removing “investment recommendation” disclosure requirements from MAR for wholesale clients.
- Packaged Retail and Insurance-Based Investment Products (PRIIPs) Regulation: reducing the key-information document (KID) requirements to include only genuinely complex packaged products that require special explanation to the retail market.