FCA – meeting with Ashey Adler, FCA Chair

From the ShareSoc Policy Committee

As part of our mission to educate, inform and represent individual investors, we regularly meet regulatory, government and other key bodies.

We engage actively with the Financial Conduct Authority. We respond to FCA consultations which impact on individuals’ savings and investments. We also meet with FCA executives, some regularly and some on an ad hoc basis.

ShareSoc chair Heather Benjamin, director Mark Northway and Policy Committee member Cliff Weight met Ashley Adler, the FCA, chair on 23 April, to hear of the regulator’s plans and priorities, to identify areas where ShareSoc and the FCA share common views and where we can work to support the FCA.

Below is a summary of the key points from the meeting:

  1. Mobilising domestic savings is part of a strategic push from the Treasury and the FCA to encourage excessive retail cash savings to move into equity investment. In turn this should stimulate demand for UK shares, improving the current low valuations. We agree that this would be a valuable initiative if achieved through a combination of positive incentives and education.
  2. The FCA has further strategic initiatives to increase the supply of issuers and of retail capital, the latter including greater access to investment research. We support this concept.
  3. We touched on the impact of the CCI regulations on the investment trust sector, and on the implication of PISCES and LTAFs for increased access to less liquid asset classes. ShareSoc is of the view that the UK’s listed closed-end funds represent an important component of the investment landscape.
  4. The provision of value by asset managers and wealth management providers is very much a shared priority between the FCA and ShareSoc. The Consumer Duty is key to this aim, although we have noted some perverse outcomes from platform providers which require focus.
  5. We were pleased to hear in Therese Chambers’ recent speech how the FCA is concluding cases much faster. The FCA explained they would conduct fewer investigations but that these would be dealt with more rapidly than in the past. The new process is streamlined, and has raised the hurdle needed to pursue an investigation.
  6. We discussed the status of the Digitisation Taskforce mandate, the importance of its work to shareholders rights, stewardship and agency in UK companies, and our concerns that the outcome may fall short of the Taskforce’s terms of reference. We discussed whether any proposals might be implemented through primary legislation or through regulation.
  7. We discussed the work ShareSoc (Mark Bentley) has been doing for holders of Hartley Pension SIPPS, and our constructive communication with the FCA in this matter.
  8. We discussed whether ShareSoc might represent individual investors on the FCA Consumer Panel. We have, in the meantime, received a helpful email on this topic from the FCA.
  9. We also touched on crypto, the advice gap, financial education, continuation funds in private equity and the rights on minority shareholders in delisted companies.

We were also grateful for Mr. Adler’s insights into efforts by various bodies to improve shareholder democracy and engagement in Hong Kong.

We agreed to keep in touch. We are available to the regulator should they need to canvas the view of individual investors, and we will continue to liaise with various departments within the FCA.

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