The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has published new rules on pension transfer advice and is seeking views on additional changes, including adviser charging structures. The new rules and areas for discussion aim to improve the quality of pension transfer advice to help consumers make informed decisions for their individual circumstances.

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The SFO is set to recover millions lost in a corruption case which saw Griffiths Energy bribe Chadian diplomats in the United States and Canada. Securing exclusive contracts with corrupt deals, Griffiths Energy bribed Chadian diplomats with discounted shares deals and ‘consultancy fees’ using a front company ‘Chad Oil’ – which was set up just five days before agreements were signed. ‘Chad Oil’ was a vehicle used by senior diplomats at the Chadian Embassy to the United States to facilitate a deal which saw the wife of the former Deputy Chief, Mrs Ikram Saleh purchase 800,000 shares at less than 0.001$CAD each, later selling them for significant profit.
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In his speech, Fernando Restoy*, Chairman, Financial Stability Institute, Bank for International Settlements, talks about the debates and negotation that takes place of completing the banking union. He talks about the challanges BIS faces with the implementation challanges, the availability of bail-in powers as a fundamental and innovative component of the Key Attributes and the MREL requirements.

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The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision on Friday published an outline of discussions at its meeting on 15–16 March 2018 in Basel and announced it will publish summaries of each meeting in future. “The Basel Committee is committed to transparency and accountability in its role as the global standard setter for the prudential regulation of banks,” said Stefan Ingves, Chairman of the Basel Committee and Governor of Sveriges Riksbank.

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In January 2016, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision published the standard Minimum capital requirements for market risk (hereafter “January 2016 standard”). This new market risk standard was developed to address a number of structural shortcomings in the Basel II market risk framework (and its subsequent revisions), and served as a key component of the Basel Committee’s reform of global regulatory standards in response to the global financial crisis.

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In his keynote speech, Klaas Knot outlines how the issue of ‘sustainability’ got on the DNB agenda, highlighting how and why sustainability is relevant for central banks, supervisors and the financial industry. Secondly, he gives an overview of the climate-risks in the Dutch financial sector. Third and finally, he sketches what this means for bank risk management and supervision.

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In his speech Christopher Woolard, FCA Executive Director of Strategy and Competition: “There’s a danger, when you’re up to your neck in policy proposals, economic analysis and focus group findings, that you could forget that regulation of the credit sector is not a cold academic exercise. Those of us engaged with this issue know the truth: that for millions of people credit is woven through the fabric of everyday life. In Glasgow 41% of adults have outstanding, non-mortgage debt, with 11% of adults in particularly high-cost credit debt.”

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As the supervisory authority for Europol, the EDPS is responsible for providing Europol with advice on all matters concerning the processing of personal data. This includes proposals for internal rules or administrative measures relating to the protection of the fundamental rights of individuals or the transfer and exchange of personal data. In 2017 Europol published its first Europol Opinion, which concerned Europol’s Integrated Data Management Concept (IDMC) Guidelines.

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Sarah Rapson, Director, Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) gave a speech about the approach of the FCA to authorisation, on which they have just consulted. In her speech she will focus on three things: How FCA use authorisation to deliver their Mission. How FCA help firms to meet FCAs minimum standards and how FCA improves their approach and being more transparent about their performance.

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Interview with Peter Praet, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, about inflation, its proces, the policies taken and the improved that still have to be taken. “The policies we have undertaken, especially since 2014, have been quite successful in getting us closer to our inflation aim. But there are uncertainties about the process of inflation, given factors like globalisation and technological changes. Mario Draghi raised important questions, which have been discussed among central bankers: what is the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment (NAIRU), what is the output gap and how big is the slack? He was exploring the possibility that the degree of slack might be bigger than what you find in classical assessments.”

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