On December 13, the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published a “Dear CEO” letter expressing its concerns over the practice of brokers demanding payments from counterparties in exchange for conducting client business with them, also known as payment for order flow (PFOF). The letter follows the FCA’s September 2016 update, published in their Market Watch newsletter, which reiterated the requirement of firms to continue to meet their obligation with regards to conflicts of interest management in the FCA’s Systems and Controls Handbook Rules (SYSC) (for further information, please see the Corporate & Financial Weekly Digest of September 30, 2016).
Continue Reading FCA Publishes “Dear CEO” Letter on Payment for Order Flow

On November 16, the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published a consultation (Consultation) on regulatory fees and levies, and its policy proposals for 2017/2018. The Consultation sets forth the FCA’s proposals on: 1) the structure of a new levy to fund action against illegal money lending; 2) the relevant groups (fee-blocks) of regulated firms from which the FCA intends to recover the costs of implementing the revised Market in Financial Instrument Directive (MiFID II); 3) proposals for market infrastructure providers to use income as a measure to calculate fees to recover the FCA’s annual funding requirement; and 4) amendments and clarifications to be made to the FCA’s Fee Manual, among others.
Continue Reading Who Pays for MiFID II implementation in UK?