UK financial services strategy and framework

This will be a virtual event to discuss our upcoming report on rethinking the strategy and framework for UK capital markets as part of a project we’re working on in partnership with Catalyse Europe. This project will feed directly into the policy debate ahead of Mansion House and the wider debate on UK financial services policy over the next few years in the run-up to the next election. Our working thesis is:

• Financial services is a vital driver of growth and investment in the UK but over the past five years, the sector has stalled: the industry’s overall output has flatlined, domestic activity has shrunk, and the UK has lost ground in key sectors of international activity;

  
  

• The reform process underway is welcome and most of the reforms are sensible … but there is a sense that they don’t go far enough, that the government has shied away from structural change, and that the strategy for financial services lacks ambition, clarity, and coherence;

  
  

• There is a huge need for more investment (e.g. in UK growth companies, infrastructure, and decarbonisation) and a huge opportunity for the industry (e.g. making the UK the default location for international business) … but grasping that opportunity will require a bolder approach, more consistency, and more joined up thinking across government.

We expect participants to be a combination of policy and government affairs specialists, government and regulatory officials, and frontline practitioners.