Only two days after ATEB’s gentle final reminder regarding the impending changes to capital adequacy requirements, the FCA has deferred the implementation for a further two years.

The new rules will now commence implementation on 31 December 2015.

The FCA has provided a statement to the Association of Professional Compliance Consultants (APCC) members which reads as follows:

The new capital requirements for personal investment firms (PIFs), which were published by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) in 2009 and were due to start a phased implementation on 31 December 2013, are being deferred for a period of two years and instead will now commence on 31 December 2015.

Recent developments lead the FCA to question whether the approach in the new rules remains the most appropriate. In particular, many firms are still implementing changes to their business models as a result of the Retail Distribution Review (RDR) and the European Banking Authority (EBA) is undertaking work (under the Capital Requirements Directive) for non-PIFs, but which could be relevant to PIFs. Also, the FCA has a competition objective that was not present under the FSA and in their current format the new rules would not necessarily be consistent with that objective. Therefore the FCA have decided to defer implementation of these rules for a further two years in order to allow a more fundamental review of the proposed approach.

The instrument has just been published on the handbook website here