FCA approach to Brexit: temporary passports and cliff edge risks

A week after the EU’s financial regulatory body ESMA issued a fairly stern warning to both EEA and UK financial institutions that they should begin preparing for the possibility of a Hard Brexit in March 2019 – which could very well spell the end of EU-UK MiFID passorting – the UK’s FCA has issued a fairly detailed view of its own side of things.

Nausicaa Delfas FCA

Nausicaa Delfas, FCA

Nausicaa Delfas, the FCA’s Executive Director of International (and unofficially, the FCA’s Brexit Chief), gave a speech this morning (full text below) outlining how the FCA was dealing with the still pending uncertainty of Brexit, what it saw as the key issues from its point of view, and what it is now doing in response.

As far as inbound traffic is concerned – i.e. EU financial firms looking to continue doing business with their UK clients – the FCA said that it is working on a Temporary Permissions Regime (TPR), which will allow EEA firms and funds using a UK passport to continue to operate, without needing to apply for authorisation at this stage.

FCA regulation

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