The UK Financial Conduct Authority has published a Policy Statement setting out responses to its earlier consultation in June 2017 on proposed Handbook changes to ensure that the Handbook is consistent with the provisions of the EU Benchmarks Regulation, which takes effect on January 1, 2018. The Policy Statement includes further clarifications, in particular on the treatment of commodity benchmarks, on one-off application fees and annual periodic fees and on other Handbook rules and guidance that the FCA will apply in addition to the BMR.

The Policy Statement includes the final form of the legal instrument which contains the Handbook changes. The FCA will make the Handbook changes once it has the necessary regulatory authority under proposed changes to UK secondary legislation.

The Handbook changes will affect benchmark administrators and also firms that are already supervised under EU financial services legislation and that either use or contribute input data to benchmarks.

View the Policy Statement (PS17/28).