PRESS: UK government to set out major reforms to City regulation - FT

The UK government will announce a package of reforms to regulation of the City of London in the King’s Speech next month, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.

The financial services bill will be included in the legislative package for the next parliamentary session that will be set out in the speech on May 13, the newspaper said, citing ‘several officials briefed on the measure’.

The legislation will include merging the Payment Systems Regulator into the Financial Conduct Authority and reforming the Financial Ombudsman Service, the FT said. It also is expected to allow the UK government to end the requirement for financial services companies to check each year whether thousands of senior staff are fit and proper and to record the results in a central directory.

It is unclear, the FT said, whether the package will include measures to loosen ringfencing rules that require investment banking operations to be separated from retail banking, as any such changes would need to be agreed with the Bank of England.

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