On December 9, the Senior Managers and Certification Regime (SM&CR) was extended to around 47,000 UK-based financial services firms. SM&CR already applied to banks and insurers, so now SM&CR applies to every FCA-regulated firm (with the exception of benchmark administrators and appointed representatives). For more information, please see the December 6 edition of the Corporate & Financial Weekly Digest).

While December 9 was the deadline for submitting applications for senior management functions to the FCA, the deadline to train staff on the application of the Conduct Rules and to issue certificates for Certified Staff is not until December 9, 2020. In its press release, the FCA encouraged firms to “start preparing now” in order to meet this deadline.

Also on December 9, the FCA published materials relating to the extended SM&CR, including a template “Statement of Responsibilities” and various forms for updating the FCA on, for example, internal transfers of senior managers or disciplinary actions.

The FCA’s press release is available here.