Over 1,300 firms and funds express interest in joining temporary permissions regime, FCA says
Firms should register between January and March 2019 for the temporary permissions regime, and it will apply for a maximum of three years.
More than 1,300 firms and funds have expressed interest in the proposed temporary permissions regime (TPR), Nausicaa Delfas, Executive Director of International, and a member of the Executive Committee at the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), said in a speech today.
Let’s recall that the UK regulator published a consultation on the proposed temporary permissions regime about a month ago. The regime is set to allow EEA firms and investment funds to continue to carry on regulated business in the UK for a limited period after Brexit while they seek full authorisation in the UK. The consultation paper sets out how the FCA expects the regime to work in practice, how firms and funds can enter it, how long it will operate for, and the rules the regulator proposes should apply to firms and fund marketing activities during the regime.
Put briefly, firms should register between January and March 2019 for the temporary permissions regime, and it will apply for a maximum of three years. Firms will be given with ‘landing slots’ within which they’ll need to submit their authorisation application. While in the scheme, the FCA proposes to operate a system of substituted compliance for certain new rules which impose obligations, so that in most cases firms will not need to start complying with the full UK implementation of a given rule until the point at which they become UK authorised.
The proposed changes to the FCA Handbook and the temporary permissions regime will only come into force in March 2019 if the UK leaves the EU without an implementation period. The FCA does not expect firms to make any changes now. However, it is important that firms and others engage with these consultations and respond with any feedback.
The UK regulator is particularly interested to hear of any significant implementation challenges that firms would face as a result of its proposals, so the FCA can start working now to address these changes. Both consultations close on December 7th, so firms have just over a month to respond.
