Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt plans to repeal part of a previous EU law that required financial firms to separate investment research costs from trading costs, Bloomberg News reported Thursday.
The country’s finance ministry announced a series of financial measures last year to boost the City of London’s role as a global financial hub. The measures include a review of the EU’s stock and bond trading requirements, known as MiFID II, and a rule requiring brokers to reduce the fees they charge their clients for researching stock picks and executing stock orders.
Hunt will announce the plan in his Mansion House speech on Monday, and he will outline the insurers’ commitment to invest billions of pounds in start-ups and infrastructure projects, the report said.
The move is designed to boost the attractiveness of the UK’s financial services sector and is a key recommendation of a review of investment research by lawyer Rachel Kent, the report said, citing two people familiar with Kent’s review.
The UK Treasury did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment.
The UK announced last year that it would launch the Investment Research Review – an independent review of financial services investment research and its contribution to the competitiveness of UK capital markets – led by Rachel Kent, senior financial services lawyer at Hogan Lovells.
The study, which was set to examine the link between research levels and the UK’s attractiveness as a place for companies to access capital in the private and public markets, ran until last month.
Britain is struggling with setbacks from Brexit, the pandemic and rising gas prices due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The country has managed to avoid a widely expected recession so far this year. (Reporting by Anirudh Saligrama in Bengaluru, Editing by Matthew Lewis)
