Financial Services Regulation

Our financial services lawyers support and broad and diverse client base of regulated businesses operating in and from the UK, including:

Banks
Wealth managers
Asset management firms
Payment services businesses
Retail platforms
Independent financial advisers (IFAs)
Corporate finance advisors
Placement agents
Fintech companies
Senior executives and other individuals

General Financial Services Regulatory advice

We provide expert, practical advice on the evolving UK financial services legal and regulatory landscape, and its impact on our clients’ products and services.

We are recognised for the breadth and quality of our regulatory legal advice. Our team advises on regulatory perimeter issues and the scope of regulatory permissions that firms need. We help our clients to comply with the UK financial services legal and regulatory regime, whether that means adapting to regulatory changes, applying the Consumer Duty, launching a new service or integrating a new team.

We regularly draft and review service agreements, terms and conditions and bespoke product documentation. We also advise on key matters including governance and the Senior Managers & Certification regime (SMCR), outsourcing and third-party arrangements, financial promotions compliance and other regulatory matters.

To support our clients, we offer a topical webinar programme, email briefings and bespoke in-house training. We also play an active role in several leading industry associations.

Regulated Iending

We help private banks – and subsidiaries of overseas banks based in the UK – navigate the UK’s consumer lending regulatory regime. Our financial services solicitors advises whether a lending arrangement is regulated, and the implications of the UK regulated mortgage and consumer credit regime.

Our team drafts and negotiates lending and security documentation, providing specialist legal advice throughout the life of a loan, from initial contact with the consumer to event-driven changes, termination, arrears, forbearance and enforcement. We are also frequently consulted on the review of lending procedures, compliance policies and regulatory manuals.

Payments and e-money

We advise banks, payment service providers and e-money institutions on payments regulation including compliance with the Payment Services Regulations 2017 (PSRs) and the Electronic Money Regulations 2011 (EMRs).

Our financial services lawyers work with clients on regulatory changes including the new Authorised Push Payment Fraud Reimbursement Scheme. Our work includes drafting and amending terms and conditions covering those for payment services or e-money, and advising upon whether providers and their accounts are in scope of the rules. We provide regulatory advice to new entrants to the payments market, including emerging Fintech businesses.

Examples of recent work

We recently advised a large private bank on innovative legal arrangements with a deposit aggregator.

Our team played a pivotal role in assisting a large wealth management group on the intra-group transfer of a large number UK and overseas retail clients.

We successfully helped a bank to rewrite its full suite of client-facing documentation, including investment terms of business and regulated lending documentation. Our clear drafting was essential in helping the bank comply with its new “consumer understanding” obligations under the Consumer Duty.

We are standing advisors to a market-leading UK retail platform. We are regularly engaged to draft and update the agreements between clients, the platform, the discretionary managers and the IFAs, and recently assisted with a large review for Consumer Duty purposes.

A new wealth management firm recently engaged us to advise upon their launch of a brand new model portfolio services offering, engaging us to provide the terms of business, utilising the “agent as client” model.

We recently acted for a large European private banking group with UK subsidiaries on significant cross-border regulatory and compliance issues.

Leading executives of UK regulated firms often require us to advise them on their obligations under the Senior Managers & Certification Regime. This is one of our most popular areas for ongoing firm training requests.

Our team recently helped major asset managers with the implementation of the UK’s new Sustainability Disclosure Requirements (SDR) regime, amending prospectuses and liaising with the FCA.

We are standing advisors to one of the UK’s foremost open-ended charitable property funds and regularly assist with the implementation of regulatory change and compliance and investor queries.