On 7 April 2020, the FCA set out its business priorities for the year ahead, with a specific focus on the challenges presented by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Throughout the pandemic, the FCA aims to: (i) protect the most vulnerable, ensuring that they can get the financial services and the help they need; (ii) tackle scams – helping consumers avoid the scams that spring up as the pandemic develops; (iii) ensure fair treatment for consumers and small firms – making sure that firms give strong and clear support to customers, recognising challenges that everyone is facing; (iv) keep markets working well, ensuring that markets remain orderly; and (v) mitigate firm failures – mitigating the impact on consumers where firms fail in these challenging circumstances.
The FCA sets out four priority areas, in the medium term, to ensure that consumers: (1) can rely on safe and accessible payments to receive their pay or benefits, settle bills and access cash; (2) do not get into unaffordable debt; (3) can make effective investment decisions about their savings, and are not exposed to risky or poor value products; and (4) are offered fair value products in a digital age and are not at risk of being treated unfairly in the pricing and other terms they receive.
The FCA also sets out its six cross-cutting work priorities (which include Brexit, climate change and operational resilience) and its planned sector work in wholesale financial markets, investment management, retail banking and general insurance and protection.
https://www.fca.org.uk/publication/business-plans/business-plan-2020-21.pdf
