General Insurance Article - FCA to consult on proposals to introduce a public register

 The FCA and Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) currently maintain a public Financial Services Register, “the FS Register”, of the firms we regulate and the individuals we have approved.

 In July 2017, the FCA published proposals to extend the Senior Managers and Certification Regime (SM&CR) to almost all regulated firms.

 Under these proposals, the FCA will only approve the most senior individuals within firms. This means that only Senior Managers will appear on the FS Register. Firms are responsible for assessing the fitness and propriety of their employees and ‘certifying’ certain individuals who are not Senior Managers, but whose jobs mean they can still have a significant impact on customers, firms and market integrity.

 In response to these proposals, the FCA received substantial feedback on the public value of the FCA maintaining a central public record of certification employees and other important individuals in firms regulated by the FCA who will no longer appear on the FS Register. This includes non-executive directors, financial advisers, traders and portfolio managers.

 The FCA has listened to this feedback and will consult by summer 2018 on policy proposals to address this feedback. In addition, the FCA plans to issue an update shortly on its work to improve the usability of the FS register, which incorporates feedback from the Work and Pensions Select Committee.