© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: British Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt holds a Ministerial Statement at the House of Commons in London, Britain, June 26, 2023. UK Parliament/Jessica Taylor/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo
(Reuters) – British Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt is planning to repeal a piece of European Union-era legislation that required financial businesses to separate the cost of investment research from trading expenditures, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday.
The country’s finance ministry had last year announced a slew of financial measures to bolster the City of London’s role as a global financial centre. The measures included a review of EU-era stock and bond trading requirements known as MiFID II and a rule requiring brokers to itemise or “unbundle” their customer charges for research on stock picks and for executing stock orders.
Hunt is set to announce the plan in his Mansion House speech on Monday, the report said, adding that he is also due to reveal a pledge by insurers to invest billions of pounds into startups and infrastructure projects.
The move is intended to strengthen the attractiveness of the UK’s financial services sector and is a key recommendation of a review around the investment research done by lawyer Rachel Kent, said the report, which cited two people familiar with Kent’s review.
UK’s Treasury did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
UK had last year announced the launch of the Investment Research Review – an independent review of financial services investment research and its contribution to UK capital markets competitiveness, headed by Rachel Kent, a veteran financial services lawyer at Hogan Lovells.
The review, which was set up to examine the link between levels of research and the attractiveness of the UK as a destination for companies to access capital, both in private and public markets, ran until last month.
Britain has been grappling with the aftershocks of Brexit, the pandemic and the rise in gas prices prompted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The country has avoided a widely anticipated recession so far this year.
