FINANCIAL SERVICES
Ten themes for 2021 Gavin Stewart considers ten themes that are likely to impact the future of financial services in the coming year.
t the start of 2020, there was a clear consensus around the direction for future regulation to progress in. The period of reform triggered by the financial crisis was coming to an end and a new agenda, focused on operational resilience, climate change, digitisation and competition, was taking shape. After Brexit, the UK would move towards becoming a low-regulation financial centre. Covid-19 has reshaped this landscape, forcing us to think differently about our society and economy. This doesn’t mean, however, that previous assumptions about regulation AIAWORLDWIDE.COM | ISSUE 116
are redundant, or that long-term trends have suddenly ceased to apply. However, they need to be re-assessed. Of the previous agenda, digitisation will accelerate and competition will take a back seat, while future regulation around operational resilience and climate change will have been deepened and broadened in scope. Coronavirus seems to be ushering in a period of activist regulation, rendering more distant the prospect of the UK becoming a low regulation centre. Below are the key themes that UK regulators will focus on over the next five years. Many of these are interdependent and
©Getty images/iStockphoto
A
Gavin Stewart Head of Strategy Execution, Financial Services Group, Grant Thornton UK LLP
15
