The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is consulting on fees for regulated firms for the 2015/16 financial year. These fees are used to cover the cost of its regulatory activities, with fees for individual firms based on the areas of business they undertake.
The FCA’s annual funding requirement is £481.6m, up 8.4% from £446.4m in 2015/16. The regulator says it will use this to deliver the programme of work set out in our 2015/16 business plan (including its work on pensions, market study into competition in investment banking and implementing the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standard’s recommendations on accountability), the development of its information systems and the need to invest in its people.
38% of regulated firms will continue to pay the minimum fee which will increase to £1084 from £1000, the first increase since 2010.
Martin Wheatley, FCA chief executive, said: “These proposals seek to share the cost of being regulated and ensure the FCA has the right resources in place to deliver appropriate protection for consumers and make markets work well.”
The publication also sets out the proposed fees for the Money Advice Service (MAS) and Ombudsman Service, which are collected by the FCA on their behalf.
The ombudsman service has asked the FCA to collect £23.3m on its behalf (which is the same amount asked for in 2013/14) recovered in the same proportions across the industry.
The FCA says it will collect £79.1 million on behalf of MAS. Their overall budget for 2015/16 is £81.1m which is the same as last year. However as the energy and water industries are voluntarily contributing £2.0 m to debt advice, the amount levied on financial services firms will be 2.5% lower than last year.
In addition the FCA has proposed fees for firms offering consumer credit, the pension guidance levy (which covers the cost of the government’s Pension Wise initiative) and the Payment Systems Regulator, which fall, outside the FCA’s annual funding requirement.
Firms can check their prospective fees for next year based on these proposals using the FCA fees calculator.
The consultation closes on 18 May 2015, and the FCA expects to confirm changes to its fees in summer 2015.