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☆ Britain's Treasury in discussions to speed up Solvency II reforms - FT
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-10 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Feb 10 (Reuters) - Britain's Treasury is in discussions to speed up a post-Brexit reform that will unlock 100 billion pounds ($120.88 billion) of investment from UK's insurance sector, the Financial Times reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter. British officials are discussing whether to pursue a two-stage implementation of the European Union's Solvency II regime, the report said. The British government was in "active discussions with the Prudential Regulation Authority, which supervises the insurance sector, and insurers as to how we can speed up implementation over the coming months," the newspaper quoted a Treasury source as saying. The Bank of England had already proposed easing Solvency II, a set of capital requirements for insurers inherited from the EU, but insurers want more capital released. British Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt in a speech last month said that reforms to the European Union's Solvency II rules will be implemented in the coming months, allowing insurers to invest more in the economy.

ION Group, the financial data firm's parent company, said in a statement on its website that the attack began on Tuesday. "The incident is contained to a specific environment, all the affected servers are disconnected, and remediation of services is ongoing," ION Group said, declining requests for further comment. ABN told clients on Wednesday that due to "technical disruption" from ION, some applications were unavailable and were expected to remain so for a "number of days". It added that its staff had to process trades directly with the exchange. Intesa Sanpaolo told clients that its brokerage and clearing operations on exchange-traded derivatives had been "severely hampered" by IT problems at ION and that it was not able to handle orders.

☆ British banking damaged by slow supervisors warns industry report
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-26 | by ( Huw Jones | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

[1/2] People walk over the Millennium Bridge with the City of London financial district in the background, in London, Britain, January 13, 2023. REUTERS/Henry Nicholls/File PhotoLONDON, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Britain's regulators can be slow, inefficient and unpredictable, raising costs and slowly damaging the financial sector's global competitiveness, industry body TheCityUK said in a report. Complex, opaque and slow authorisations, such as for a new chief executive or a new product, can discourage growth and investment, the report published on Thursday said. It said The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Bank of England's Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) were taking steps to speed up authorisations, but further action was needed. The Bank of England said it recognised the need to improve the timeliness of approving senior managers in particular and was taking steps in line with many of the recommendations.

☆ British bank TSB fined £48.65 million over IT platform migration failures
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-20 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

British lender TSB has been fined £48.65 million ($59.07 million) over a botched IT platform migration in 2018, the Financial Conduct Authority and the Bank of England said on Tuesday. The IT upgrade "immediately experienced technical failures", the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) said, resulting in "significant disruption" to TSB's in-person, online and phone banking services. TSB was fined £29.75 million by the FCA and £18.9 million by the PRA, receiving a 30% discount by agreeing to settle the issue, the statement said. In a statement, TSB CEO Robin Bulloch apologised to consumers hit by problems during the upgrade. TSB's Spanish owner lender Sabadell said in a statement that the settlement would be accounted for by TSB in the fourth quarter.

LONDON/MADRID, Dec 20 (Reuters) - British lender TSB has been fined 48.65 million pounds ($59.1 million) over a botched IT platform migration in 2018, UK regulators said on Tuesday. The regulators found that TSB failed to organise and control the migration adequately, and failed to manage operational risks from its IT outsourcing setup. TSB was fined 29.75 million pounds by the FCA and 18.9 million pounds by the PRA, receiving a 30% discount by agreeing to settle the issue, the statement said. In a statement, TSB CEO Robin Bulloch apologised to consumers hit by problems during the upgrade. "Over the past four years, we have harnessed our technology to deliver new products and better services for TSB customers."

☆ UK’s Big Bang barely mitigates City’s Brexit pain
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-09 | by ( Liam Proud | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Hence Friday’s package, long trailed as a “Big Bang”, supposed to turbocharge the City. Eventually, he could end the regime if banks prove they can safely be wound down. Hunt’s broader push is to enlist the Financial Conduct Authority and Prudential Regulation Authority supervisors in his Big Bang, giving them a statutory responsibility for boosting the economy’s competitiveness. The only way to undo the damage would be to align with European rules indefinitely or to re-join the bloc, both of which are political no-gos. The government will also introduce new statutory objectives for the Financial Conduct Authority watchdog and the Prudential Regulation Authority, which supervises banks and insurers.

☆ Australian banking system cushioned for imminent climate change-related risks - regulator
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Nov 30 (Reuters) - Potential economic downturns caused by climate change could pose risks to the loan books of Australia's top five banks without resulting in any severe stress to the system and the economy, a risk study conducted by the country's banking regulator showed. With global focus sharply pivoting towards climate change, banks have come under increased scrutiny for their ties with fossil fuel projects, prompting them to set goals to cut emissions and raise investments in clean energy projects. These banks have "predicted they would adjust their risk appetite and lending practices, such as cutting back on high loan-to-valuation lending and reducing exposure to higher risk regions and industries", the regulator said. APRA will now consider how the assessment could be applied to other regulated industries and climate-related challenges, it said. ($1 = 1.4948 Australian dollars)Reporting by Sameer Manekar and Tejaswi Marthi in Bengaluru; editing by Uttaresh.V and Subhranshu SahuOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ UK banks’ Big Bang thankfully looks like big flop
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( Liam Proud | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Yet, the mooted changes would probably only benefit middling lenders like Santander UK, Virgin Money (VMUK.L) and Banco Sabadell’s (SABE.MC) TSB Bank, according to the FT. And on Wednesday, the BoE’s supervisory body said it planned largely to stick to international bank-capital rules, dubbed Basel 3.1. But the big flop might not be such a bad thing for the country’s financial sector. Separately, the government’s City minister Andrew Griffith said on Nov. 29 that he wanted to relax the so-called ringfencing regime that forces large British lenders to separate their retail and investment banking arms. According to the Financial Times, the ringfencing regime would still apply to the biggest UK banks but there could be exemptions for lenders with limited trading operations including Santander UK, Virgin Money and TSB Bank.

The banks are now less conservative in counting expected rental income when assessing loan applications, said the four sources. In September, about a third of new bank mortgage lending was for investment. On Nov. 12, NAB will also halve its discount on rental income to 10%, including for Airbnb-like short-term rentals, the sources said. NAB, Westpac and ANZ trail market leader Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA.AX), which has a quarter of the mortgage market. Commonwealth continues to apply a rental income discount of 20% on mortgage applications, a sixth source said.

☆ Explainer: How are life insurers coping in LDI storm?
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-13 | by ( Carolyn Cohn | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

LONDON, Oct 13 (Reuters) - The focus of a gilt market storm has been around pension schemes' use of liability-driven investments (LDI), many of which are highly leveraged. Life insurers also use LDI strategies in their provision of annuities, which pay a fixed income for life. HOW HAVE LIFE INSURERS PERFORMED? Life insurers were more likely to have hedged their positions with physical financial instruments, rather than with derivatives, analysts say. WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD FOR LIFE INSURERS?

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