The BoE and PRA are getting ready to enforce against more firms. Are you impacted?

The Bank of England and PRA are preparing to take enforcement action against a wider range of firms.

They've proposed new enforcement policies, and extensions to existing policies, to govern their use of enforcement powers (many only recently obtained) under the securitisation regulations and in respect of digital assets firms, critical third parties and wholesale cash distribution.

The regulators aren't taking novel approaches here.  All the new policies closely track the PRA's existing enforcement policy and approach.  There are two interesting exceptions, though:

• The Early Account Scheme appears not to be available to critical third parties.  Surprising: op res and tech investigations could well benefit from firm-provided accounts and the expert assistance these can leverage efficiently.
• For firms that aren't PRA-authorised, the PRA and Bank of England aren't going to use a Step 2 Starting Point Matrix.  That's because the matrix depends the PRA's categorisation of PRA-authorised firms by potential impact.  Instead, the policies reserve a comparatively wide discretion to the regulators to set a Step 2 figure reflecting the seriousness of the breach.

They propose to implement these changes in Q4 2024.  So stand by for the first enforcement investigations in the areas in question.  The stage is being set.