Financial Conduct Authority Of The UK to Evaluate Post-Brexit Rules

UK’s market watchdog Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said on Wednesday that they are starting to evaluate its regulations as Britain is ready to crash out of the EU bloc. Andrew Bailey, CEO of Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), said UK’s divorce from European bloc would be the most immediate challenge in front of the UK. The head of FCA also added that post-Brexit, which is scheduled on October 31, we have to ensure that financial regulations are strong enough to tackle the challenges going to arise. Eurosceptics said that Brexit would give Britain humongous amount of opportunity to ease what they think as oppressive regulations from the bloc, to maintain the UK as a competitive global financial hub. However, Europhile, those who want the UK to stay with the bloc, said citizens of the EU are the largest customers of London's financial companies. The watchdog regulator said they are going to evaluate costs associated with the new regulation and equivalence and the process of getting market access in the European bloc for a non-EU financial business. However, market access is only allowed to the member countries of the EU or those who are part of its customs union, but both FCA and BOE have raised concerns over the UK becoming a "rule taker" as it has cut and pasted the bloc's equivalence regime into the national rule. Andrew Bailey also mentioned that the watchdog would provide necessary guidance to the UK's finance ministry on enhancing FCA’s administration power in the cryptocurrency arena, including its supervision of security tokens which approximate to shares or debt, and utility tokens, which enable access to products or services without giving holders any right. As uncertainties over Brexit is still hovering around Britain, no one knows precisely what is going to come next. In the latest development between British Prime Minister Theresa May and EU's lawmakers, it got decided that Brexit is going to take place on October 31, this year. However, many are under the impression that Brexit is not going to take place, but an extension of Article 50 till October 31, still pumping uncertainties among the business group of the UK. Businesses have already initiated their contingency planning, and a further delay of Brexit is going to cost them again. Around the globe, London is considered as the centre of gravity for financial institutions. However, the majority of customers of the UK’s financial institution are not British citizens, and any form of hard Brexit could lead to big trouble for the banking arena in the UK. At this present scenario, we believe this is the right step taken by the FCA of the UK to start evaluating various regulations that can prevent London's financial institutions from Brexit related problems. As Andre Bailey also said that, as a watchdog, we have to serve the public interest and for that, we need to adopt changes to an ever-changing environment.