Dealing with Brexit, firms’ culture and governance, as well as innovation and data ethics are among the core priorities for 2019/20 at the UK's Financial Conduct Authority.
Other core areas of FCA focus – available in the FCA’s latest business plan – will be financial crime, fair treatment of existing customers and operational resilience.
Delivering fair treatment for customers has been a major focus for the FCA with insurers in recent times.
Last week, the regulator identified “significant potential harm” arising from product development and distribution approaches employed in some sectors of the general insurance (GI) sector.
The FCA said specific examples of potential harms include customers paying high prices for GI products, which appear significantly higher than the production and delivery costs of the products, due to high levels of commission in the distribution chain.
The FCA’s business plan for 2019/20 notes it has focused on individual accountability and cultural change in recent years, including the creation of the Senior Managers and Certification Regime (SM&CR) for banks and insurers.
In March, the FCA said it published final rules establishing a directory of public information about individuals in key roles who will not be included as part of the SM&CR.
This directory is due to go live in March 2020 for banks and insurers, and December 2020 for all other FSMA firms.
FCA chief executive Andrew Bailey said dealing with Brexit will be the most immediate challenge for the financial services sector.
Bailey said: “In order to ensure we are a regulator that continues to serve the public interest, we need to adapt to the ever-changing environment. This is why the future of regulation is a key priority in this year’s business plan.
“We will be leading a debate about this with stakeholders so that we can keep pace with the developments taking place in the markets that we regulate and in wider society.”
The FCA's full business plan for 2019/20 can be read here