Fortnightly bulletin 14 july 2016

WMA Bulletin 14th July 2016

What's going on in our industry?

FCA publishes Annual Report FCA have published their 2015/16 Annual Report in addition to a report of its competition activities since 2013.

Terrorist Individuals and Organisations The government has created a list of terrorist individuals and organisations that are subject to sanctions, click here to view it.

The A to Z of the Darknet A short guide describing what the Darknet is and how it can be used has been published that may be of interest to members - access it here.

Proposed Qualified Intermediary Agreement On 1st July the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) published Notice 2016-42 which contains a proposed Qualified Intermediary (QI) Agreement that, when finalised, will replace the existing version and be effective from 1st January 2017. Existing QIs that are Foreign Financial Institutions under FATCA will be able to renew their agreements on the FATCA registration website.

A more detailed summary of the proposed QI Agreement will be included in the next WMA Update.

ESMA Discussion Paper on Distributed Ledger Technology On 2nd June the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) published a discussion paper entitled “The Distributed Ledger Technology Applied to Securities Markets".

ESMA Discussion Paper on Distributed Ledger Technology cont.

This follows on from the WMA Insight Series on Blockchain in the previous week and many of the issues raised in ESMA’s paper were raised at the WMA event, i.e.: - possible benefits to clearing and settlement, - record of ownership and safekeeping of assets, - reduced counter-party risk as well as areas of key challenges of governance & privacy, - interoperability, - cyber risks.

The deadline for comments back to ESMA is 2nd September 2016.

What is WMA up to?

WMA European and International Sub Board Committee

The work of the WMA European and International Sub-Board Committee has, of course, slightly changed its emphasis in light of recent events. If you would like to join the committee, please let Liz know. This is an important moment to influence policy going forward and member input is vital to the collective voice we will provide to Government and the Regulators.

Work on Brexit We will have a multi-pronged strategy in relation to our input from wealth management to the Government on their Brexit negotiations. We will be issuing a questionnaire to assess the impact, understand your EU business and other relevant information; we will be running Specialist Interest Groups (SIGs) that reflect the different types of business in the first week and a half of September; and we will be collating all information to feed into TheCityUK, who will be inputting on financial services straight into the Government. The WMA European and International Sub-Board Committee, chaired by Sheila Nicoll, will oversee our input, and she is also on TCUK’s advisory panel looking at the collective financial services response. We will be sending out information on the dates of the SIGs for you to indicate which ones you would like to attend.

In the meantime, however, any in-company assessment you have already done of the likely impact and implications on your business, please can you send them through to John Barrass, who leads on Government and International Relations. This information will be treated confidentially and will add colour and nuance to our input to the negotiations. If you would like to discuss any aspects or share views by telephone before September, please get in touch with either Liz or John.

Click here to read about the article 50 process and view a timeline.

Operations Committee On 7th July the WMA Operations Committee discussed with Euroclear its forthcoming consultation paper on proposed processing changes in respect of dividends with options. The consultation is expected to be published later in July. There was also a presentation on the key changes that will impact both Euroclear and its participants as a result of the CSD Regulation. The Committee also discussed a number of operational issues around client assets.

Prospectus Regulation In line with business as usual post-referendum, we continue to negotiate a viable retail bond market in the Prospectus Directive review. The Council have stubbornly retained the €100,000 threshold for institutional bond issues and keeping retail investors out, but the European Parliament has gone for WMA’s Qualified Investor route which is good for Discretionary Fund Managers and their retail clients.

Next step is autumn trilogues and horse trading multiple texts into a single law. The Parliament – and therefore WMA – now have a chance of winning them. Watch this space.

What's coming up in our industry?

Industry Research into Unclaimed Assets We have flagged the work of the Dormant Assets Commission in recent editions of WMA Bulletin and WMA Update.

Neither the Dormant Assets Commission nor FCA currently has the information required to judge the scale of the problem of dormant assets. WMA and the Investment Association have been liaising with KBMstrategy who are leading research into the scope and scale of unclaimed assets. KBMstrategy is seeking to work with industry to help avoid the need for a regime imposed by Government and to accelerate the process of returning assets to their rightful owners. Anyone interested in finding out more about their research project please contact Andy Thompson.

London FinTech Week Members may be interested to know that the Fintech Week starts on 15th July and runs until 22nd July. This is a series of conferences, workshops, hackathons, meetups and networking. Each day has a focus on a different topic. The main conference/exhibition takes place at the Grange Tower Bridge Hotel, but other events take place across the City of London, Canary Wharf and “Tech City".

Further information can be found here and WMA members are offered a 20% discount. Please enter this code to claim your discount: WMA1.

What's coming up in WMA? Isle of Man Briefing - 15th July 2016 WMA Briefings are free events created for our member firms located throughout the UK and Ireland. Briefings are an opportunity for members to hear about key industry issues such as compliance, operations, UK Regulation and EU Regulation and the work WMA is undertaking for the community.

These events qualify for 1.5 hours of CPD and provide an important chance for WMA to meet with our members and gather your feedback, comments and questions.

Book your place here.

WMA Annual Summit 9th November 2016 The Grange Hotel Tower Bridge London, E1 8GP

The WMA are excited to launch the 2016 Summit which will be a unique opportunity to investigate and gain a comprehensive understanding of the issues that impact upon the wealth management sector.

It will also be an exceptional opportunity for the wealth community to debate the future of our industry and its role in spurring economic growth. Sir Ranulph Fiennes Bt OBE will be giving an unmissable presentation to close the WMA Annual Summit.

Book now to ensure you don’t miss out.