It has been a very busy and productive start to the year, with activity and outcomes being delivered across our strategic priorities. Alongside publishing several reports and consultation responses, we have also continued to engage on critical industry issues and initiatives with government, policymakers and senior stakeholders through our events, delegations and wider activity. Earlier this month we held our Annual Dinner, in partnership with A&O Shearman, which was a great success, welcoming the Governor of the Bank of England, newly appointed Economic Secretary to the Treasury (EST), and the Chair of our Board as our speakers. Planning is underway for our first two major conferences of the year: International and Future Skills – you can find more details on these events and register to attend them on our website
Long term competitiveness
We have continued to engage with government on both the Industrial and Trade Strategies, including responding to its call for evidence on its ‘Financial services growth and competitiveness strategy’ where we highlighted several key factors that the strategy must address to ensure a dynamic approach to bolstering the UK’s ability to compete internationally. Alongside our submission, we also convened a group of members to meet the EST and Minister for Services, Small Businesses and Exports, to discuss the Financial Services strategy and wider Industrial Strategy. We shared members’ views on the Trade Strategy with the UK Minister of State for Trade Policy and Economic Security in roundtable discussions to input and contributed to the UK House of Commons Business and Trade Committee’s inquiry on export-led growth. We are continuing our work with members and government on how the UK-based industry can support trade across the growth corridors between the Middle East, Africa, and Asia.
We have continued to engage constructively with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) on their enforcement proposals and submitted a response to their consultation in mid-February. Our view remains that the FCA has not shown that its proposals will advance its objectives, and among other concerns, believe that they would increase the culture of regulatory uncertainty which members report is already proving damaging to the UK competitiveness. Our CEO also gave oral evidence to the Treasury Select Committee on the work of the FCA, underlining the need for their new strategy to drive a cultural shift away from risk aversion and towards enabling innovation and growth.
Our response to HM Treasury’s consultation on the Comprehensive Spending Review 2025 reflected the broad reach of our industry and the number of Westminster departments where we believe members could work in partnership to deliver growth. Our submission will help shape conversations with policymakers over the coming weeks.
We remain actively engaged on the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme (FIRS), particularly on the enhanced tier. At the end of last year, we responded to the Home Office’s request for feedback on draft guidance for the scheme, making clear the need for further engagement with industry so that government can fully understand the impact the scheme could have on both the industry and the UK economy. We continue to engage with other trade associations from a range of industries to ensure a coordinated approach.
We were very pleased to publish a report in partnership with Hogan Lovells in late January, ‘The digitalisation of UK capital markets: digitalised financial market infrastructure and tokenised bonds,’ which addresses the urgent need for the UK to press ahead with the digital transformation of its capital markets. The report outlines specific actions for the government, regulators, and industry to undertake in the short, medium, and long term to uphold the UK’s leading status as an international financial centre and support the government’s growth objectives.
We also published a paper in January on growth markets, ‘Catalysts for growth: Boosting UK growth markets’, emphasising the urgent need for collective action from government, regulators, and industry to focus on their revitalisation and keep the value, innovation, jobs, tax revenues, and talent supported by these markets within the UK. The paper sets out 10 strategic enablers to strengthen UK Growth Markets and will be supporting conversations with policymakers and other key stakeholders over the coming weeks.
Activity through our Tech and Innovation Group continues at pace, including a response to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology’s Technology Adoption Review, making the case for ensuring that the industry can continue embrace technology and innovation to secure its future competitiveness. We are running member workshops to identify specifics barriers firms face when adopting AI and recently advocated for members’ priorities on AI regulation at the FCA’s AI Sprint. We have run a cyber resilience series in partnership with Aon, bringing together industry experts and stakeholders such as the FCA and National Cyber Security Centre to discuss how we can collectively work towards a more cyber resilient ecosystem, and are partnering with EY on their financial services technology future leaders programme for 2025.
We have submitted our response to the Pensions Investment Review: Interim report and continue to engage with the Department for Work and Pensions and HM Treasury on the review. We wrote to the new Pensions Minister setting out the need for a focus on pension adequacy and incentivising domestic investment ahead of the next phase of the review.
As part of our legal services work, we submitted a response to the Civil Justice Committee’s consultation on litigation funding, highlighting concerns for our members and calling for a new, compulsory but proportionate regulatory regime. Our CEO also attended a roundtable with the Lord Chancellor and Business Secretary to discuss the contribution of the legal sector to the UK economy and how the sector could support the government’s growth agenda. At the end of last year, we published our annual ‘Legal services: internationally renowned’ report, which highlights the significant benefit legal services provide to the UK.
Trust and reputation
Our 2025 Annual Dinner, held in partnership with A&O Shearman, at Raffles London, was a great opportunity to bring together senior practitioners from across our industry, government, parliament, regulators, the diplomatic community and the media. We were delighted to host a conversation between Andrew Bailey, Governor of the Bank of England, and Francine Lacqua, Anchor and Editor-at-Large of Bloomberg TV, which covered a wide range of topics relating to the challenges and opportunities in financial regulation. It was also great to welcome Emma Reynolds MP in her new role as EST and hear her share some of her key priorities. Guests also heard from the Chair of our Board, Anne Richards DBE, who stressed the importance of moving fast and having a tolerance for innovation and experimentation to ensure the UK maintains its status as a world-leading international financial centre. The speeches also generated good coverage in outlets such as Politico, The Telegraph, Bloomberg and The Times.
At the start of the year, we published our ‘Key Facts about the UK as an international financial centre 2024’ report, an annual compendium of data from across the financial and related professional services ecosystem. The report shows that despite economic and geopolitical challenges, the industry remains resilient, with the UK continuing to be the world’s largest financial services net exporter, with a trade surplus of $98.1bn (£78.9bn) in 2023, demonstrating the scale of its global competitiveness. It continues to be a well-used source of data for members, media, policymakers and other stakeholders.
Our National Conference 2024, sponsored by PwC, and held in Birmingham was another successful event. Also sponsored by Guernsey Finance and State Street, the event attracted nearly 200 delegates from across the industry, policymaking, academia and the media, featured a packed agenda of keynote addresses and panel discussions, all of which are available to watch on our website. We are now preparing for our International and Future Skills Conferences, which will take place in April and May respectively.
