Reeves tears up UK bank ringfence rules in financial services overhaul

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The chancellor has announced plans to reform the ringfencing rules that force UK banks to separate their retail and investment banking activities, as part of a raft of measures to soften regulations and drum up more investment in financial markets.

Rachel Reeves said the changes to the heavily criticised ringfencing rules would help to free up capital for banks as part of the government’s drive to boost growth by putting “the UK ahead in the race for financial businesses”.

The chancellor announced the regulatory shake-up — dubbed “the Leeds reforms” — in the Yorkshire city ahead of making her set piece speech on financial services at Mansion House in London on Tuesday evening.

“The measures today, the Leeds reforms, do represent the widest set of reforms to financial services for more than a decade,” Reeves said.

“We now need to work together to bring these to life, to make sure — whether it is more first-time buyers getting access to mortgages [or] more businesses getting access to capital to start up, to scale up, and then ultimately to list in the UK — that is now our job.”

Setting out plans to double the growth rate in net financial services exports over the next decade, Reeves announced a string of proposals to ease areas of regulation that companies complain are weighing on activity and growth.

The Financial Conduct Authority’s flagship consumer duty rules, which require financial firms to ensure customers have good outcomes, will be curtailed to stop them applying to business-to-business activities. 

The Financial Ombudsman Service will be overhauled after repeated complaints from industry that it acts as a “quasi-regulator” with plans to curb its powers by ensuring “its decisions are more closely aligned” to the FCA’s rules.

Other moves include the launch of a concierge service to help foreign financial services companies set up in the UK, rule changes to encourage banks to lend more to first-time buyers with lower incomes, and Bank of England plans to ease capital rules on smaller banks.

Reeves said changes to the bank ringfencing rules would be examined in a review led by the City minister Emma Reynolds that aims to “strike the right balance between growth and stability, including protecting consumer deposits”. 

The Treasury said the reforms “tear down the barriers to attracting investment in the finance sector by reintroducing informed risk-taking into the system, cutting unnecessary red tape, driving more finance into public markets and actively helping international companies to set up in the UK”.

Separately, Reeves gave details of plans to persuade people to switch their savings from cash Isas to stocks and shares, in a campaign that she hopes will increase the availability of capital to growing companies and boost returns for savers.

She announced on Tuesday that major financial institutions would back an advertising campaign to promote the opportunities provided by investing in equities. Reeves believes consumers should be encouraged to take more informed risks.

Banks would also directly promote investment opportunities to people with cash sitting in low-interest accounts for the first time. There would be a review of “risk warnings on investment products”, the Treasury said.

Reeves has retreated from plans to announce immediate reforms to cash Isas — she had been looking to cut the tax-free amount that could be saved in such products — following a backlash from building societies and consumer champions.

The Treasury said Reeves would “continue to consider reforms to Isas and savings to achieve the right balance between cash savings and investments”.

The idea of promoting “popular capitalism” has drawn comparisons with Margaret Thatcher’s 1980s “Tell Sid” campaign to encourage ordinary people to invest in a privatised British Gas. 

The Treasury claimed that on current trends, moving £2,000 from low-interest accounts to stocks and shares could leave “millions of people £9,000 better off in 20 years’ time”. The Treasury said the UK had the lowest level of retail investment in the G7 group of rich economies.

Companies that have signed up to the campaign include Barclays, NatWest, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, AJ Bell, Hargreaves Lansdown, Vanguard, Freetrade, Octopus Money, Robinhood UK, Trading 212, St James’s Place, Interactive Investor, Schroders and the London Stock Exchange. 

The chancellor also is launching a new Global Talent Taskforce to attract international talent and a new financial services skills compact led by the Financial Services Skills Commission. The FSSC had warned of a skills gap at a time of technological and demographic change, saying that a quarter of the UK’s financial services workforce are set to leave high-skilled roles over the next 10 years.