On Friday (29 September 2023) Barclays closed three more of it’s branches in Redditch, Bude and Hanover Square London. They are not alone. In recent weeks, HSBC, Lloyds and Halifax have also pulled down the shutters for the last time on branches across the country. Since 2015 nearly 5000 branches have closed and more than …
Category archives: Financial Services Bill
Fintech regulation: a look back at 2022 and a look ahead to 2023
Back in February, I wrote a piece for Finextra titled, ‘For financial services, 2022 is a year of real regulatory possibilities. Through a series of events – impossible to have imagined at the time – Rishi Sunak, the then Chancellor is now the Prime Minister and the progress on fintech regulation I had hoped for …
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Financial Services Bill Amendment: Cashback Without Purchase
On the final day of report stage (19 April 2021) for the Financial Services Bill in the House of Lords, I put forward an amendment similar to a previous amendment regarding a review for cashback without purchase. The new amendment was reworded but with the same aim – of supporting access to cash by allowing …
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Financial Services Bill Amendments: Digital ID, Open Finance, Digital Infrastructure and Digital Payments.
The Financial Services Bill – still in the House of Lords – has moved from committee stage to report stage – and I am continuing to champion the issues and put forward the amendments that I raised at committee stage. On Monday, 19 April 2021, several of these amendments (regarding open finance, digital infrastructure and …
Financial Services Bill Amendments: Bank of England & Financial Inclusion
The Financial Services Bill has reached report stage in the House of Lords and today (14 April 2021) I will be putting forward an amendment asking the Government to work with the Bank of England to consider the, potentially pivotal, role the Bank could play in relation to financial inclusion. Amendment 35 in full: Insert …
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Lords Committee Hearing on Financial Exclusion
As a House of Lords hearing revisits the work of the Financial Exclusion Select Committee I consider how my proposed amendments to the Financial Services Bill can deliver the change we still need to see. Financial services should enable and empower, and I want us all to have: “the ability to manage day to day …
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Financial Services Bill Amendments: Digital ID and Other Digital ‘Infrastructure’
On day 6 (10 March 2021) of the committee stage of the Financial Services Bill in the House of Lords I put forward a large group of amendments under the broad heading of fintech. One important amendment would introduce distributed digital identification (Digital ID) and others would encourage digital operational resilience and the modernisation of …
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Financial Services Bill Amendments: Distributed Ledger Technologies
On day six of committee stage of the Financial Services Bill in the House of Lords I am putting forward several amendments – broadly under the heading of fintech – with two specifically designed to encourage the development of use cases for distributed ledger technologies (DLT). Following our departure from the EU it seems an …
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Financial Services Bill Amendments: Fintech Strategic Review Recommendations
Today (10 March 2021) on day 6 of committee stage of the Financial Services Bill I have tabled amendments that seek to implement recommendations from the Fintech Strategic Review. Ron Kalifa’s review for the government is a fine piece of work, engaging hundreds of experts across FinTech and financial services. It has excellent chapter heads …
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