FSA amends sourcebook to include Mifid exemptions

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LONDON – UK regulator the Financial Services Authority (FSA) has released a policy statement including amendments to reform the Client Assets Sourcebook (Cass).

The FSA says it aims to simplify Cass along the lines of more principles-based supervision to increase the flexibility available to UK firms when complying to the European Union’s Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (Mifid).

Mifid was implemented across the EU in November 2007 to harmonise and increase standards in payments reporting. The FSA has marked out two exceptions to its general approach for Cass areas outside the scope of Mifid.

These include the ‘approved bank’ exemption and affiliated companies provisions. The FSA had previously proposed moving non-Mifid areas to the Mifid standard, but has made the exceptions after industry consultation.

A Mifid-standard approach would have required status changes from ‘approved bank’ to ‘credit institution’, in addition to requiring that affiliated businesses be treated no differently than other clients. Industry criticism to such an approach has led the FSA to retain ‘non-Mifid carve-outs’ for bank and affiliate firms.

The paper may be downloaded from the link below.

http://www.fsa.gov.uk/pubs/policy/ps08_10.pdf

The Cass amendments came as part of a number of changes to the regulator’s policy handbook, which may be viewed in their entirety from the link below.

http://www.fsa.gov.uk/pubs/handbook/hb_notice81.pdf