At our annual Asset Management Conference, we outlined our strategy focused on short- and long-term asset management reforms to ensure the UK remains one of the main centres for investment decision making. We believe the best way to accomplish this is to have an industry that is fair, transparent and competes effectively.
To achieve this, Financial Conduct Authority Chief Executive Martin Wheatley outlined our key focus for the next 12 months; the use of dealing commission.
We will be opening a debate with the industry on the use of dealing commission, with the end target of investors knowing exactly what they are paying for. We are not going unilaterally make a decision; we want to take the time to engage and gather views from the industry and use this to inform our Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) II negotiations.
We have also published Martin’s full keynote speech[1] which gives the history of the regime, the shortcomings and our next steps, including us consulting to clarify our rules on research and a thematic review on conflicts of interest.
Another key element of today was our commitment to reduce the length of time to authorise new non-UCITS retails schemes and Qualified Investor Schemes.
We also previewed results from two thematic reviews; outsourcing and anti-money laundering and anti-bribery and corruption systems and controls which will be formally published in the next couple of weeks.