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The financial supervisory authorities of Britain must not carry out any important reforms that are necessary to unlock around 22 billion GBP for commercial financing for small companies, warned the British branch of the International Chamber of Commerce.
In a letter to the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority of the Bank of England, the ICC gave an “urgent need” for reforms for the dissolution of trade financing, which is of crucial importance for the drawing of global transactions.
The letter seen by the Financial Times warned that the “outdated” regulatory framework for trade financing issues the advantages of a new law that was introduced in 2023 to digitize the paperwork for export.
“These profits are negated by an outdated regulatory framework, which remains bureaucratic and inefficient, with tedious conformity tests and excited investment requirements,” ICC boss Chris Southworth wrote to the managing director of the FCA, Nikhil Rathi.
However, the FCA and PRA have withdrawn against criticism and said they had already proposed a relaxation of compliance and capital rules in key areas of trade financing.
The ICC intervention takes place two weeks after the British government has published a trade strategy that promised to increase the country’s trading output since Brexit.
In recent years, the group has lobbyed work for revising Basel 3.1 Bank Capital Rules and the expressions that the supervisory authorities did not move quickly enough despite the pressure of Chancellor Rachel Reeves this year so that you take a strong attitude.
According to Southworth, the removals of the supervisory authorities, Basel 3.1, were too slow and insufficient to revise it before a implementation period at the beginning of 2027.
“Reforms must be accelerated and deadlines brought to ensure that the advantages in this parliament are achieved,” he wrote. “It is time for greater ambition and a more intelligent, more agile regulatory framework.”
The ICC said that Great Britain, although it is a hub for global trade financing, had fallen behind competitors such as Hong Kong, India, the United Arab Emirates and the United States, all of which “have more agile and reaction -fast regulatory framework”.
It wants to see a lighter mountain regulation regime, with the stressful rules for “knowledge of your customers” and a reduction in the value of the capital requirements for retail. These would help to reduce the “trade financing gap” of 22 billion GBP between the gap between the demand for trade financing and the actually available financing.
The FCA announced the FT that she had already considered to alleviate her compliance rules for financial transactions. In response to the request of Prime Minister Sir Keir Starrer for ideas to support economic growth and competitiveness, the authority said in January that they would discuss the relaxation of “anti -money laundering” controls to minor transactions.
“Our letter to the Prime Minister placed a potential method to reduce money laundering costs by relaxing knowledge of knowledge of small transactions,” said the FCA. “We test this idea with the government.”
The PRA also rejected the criticism and pointed out that he had proposed a revision of the requirements of bank capital in order to loosen it to loans to SMEs and trade financing, partly on the information provided by the ICC.
“As announced this year, we are planning the implementation of Basel 3.1 rules, including the one relevant to trade financing, on January 1, 2027,” said the PRA. “This date was selected to give companies enough time to implement the final rules themselves.”
“Our implementation of Basel 3.1 is intended to reduce the stress for trade financing by reducing the capital requirements for some relevant exposure and promotes feedback that is provided by the ICC into the consultation period,” added the authority.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Trade said that the British company would help to be successful on the global market.
It added: “Great Britain plans to implement these reforms in January 2027 in order to safely plan our company and enable more time for greater clarity worldwide.”
