{"id":245264,"date":"2025-07-07T12:42:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-07T12:42:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/245264\/"},"modified":"2025-07-07T12:42:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-07T12:42:12","slug":"post-brexit-export-drive-hampered-by-uk-trade-finance-regulations-icc-warns-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/245264\/","title":{"rendered":"Post-Brexit export drive hampered by UK trade finance regulations, ICC warns \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Britain\u2019s financial regulators are failing to push through vital reforms needed to unlock some \u00a322 billion (\u20ac25.5 billion) in trade finance for small businesses, the UK branch of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) has warned.<\/p>\n

In a letter to the UK\u2019s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Bank of England\u2019s<\/a> Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA), the ICC said there was an \u201curgent need\u201d for reforms to regulations governing the raising of trade finance that is key to underwriting global transactions. <\/p>\n

The letter warned that the \u201cantiquated\u201d regulatory framework for trade finance offset the benefits of a new law introduced in 2023 to digitise the paperwork for exporting.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese gains are negated by an antiquated regulatory framework that remains bureaucratic and inefficient, with laborious compliance checks and overburdensome capital requirements,\u201d wrote ICC boss Chris Southworth to the FCA\u2019s chief executive Nikhil Rathi.<\/p>\n

However, the FCA and PRA both pushed back against the criticism, saying they have already proposed an easing of compliance and capital rules in key areas of trade finance.<\/p>\n

The ICC\u2019s intervention comes two weeks after the UK government published a trade strategy that promised to boost the country\u2019s flagging trade performance since Brexit. <\/a><\/p>\n

[\u00a0EU blocks Britain\u2019s attempts to join pan-European trading blocOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The group has been lobbying in recent years for an overhaul of the Basle 3.1 bank capital rules and expressed frustration that regulators have not moved fast enough, despite pressure from chancellor Rachel Reeves this year for them to take a more pro-growth stance. <\/p>\n

Mr Southworth said moves by regulators to rework Basle 3.1 regulations ahead of an implementation deadline at the start of 2027 were too slow and insufficiently far-reaching. <\/p>\n

\"\"How the wealthy are buying up land to avoid inheritance tax <\/p>\n

\u201cReforms must be accelerated and deadlines brought forward to ensure the benefits are realised within this Parliament,\u201d he wrote. \u201cIt is time for greater ambition and a smarter, more agile regulatory framework.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ICC said the UK, despite being a hub for global trade finance, had fallen behind competitors including Hong Kong, India, UAE and the US, which all \u201chave more agile and responsive regulatory frameworks\u201d.<\/p>\n

It wants to see a lighter touch regulatory regime, with onerous \u201cknow your customer\u201d rules streamlined, and a lowering of the capital requirement threshold for trading SMEs. These would help reduce the \u00a322 billion UK \u201ctrade finance gap\u201d between gap between the demand for trade finance and the amount of financing actually available, it said.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Brexit was \u2018single stupidest thing a country\u2019s ever done\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The FCA said it was already considering easing its compliance rules on financial transactions. In response to prime minister Keir Starmer\u2019s request for ideas to support economic growth and competitiveness, the authority said in January it would discuss ways to relax \u201canti-money laundering\u201d checks on smaller transactions.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur letter to the prime minister set out one potential way of reducing anti-money laundering costs by relaxing know-your-customer checks on small transactions,\u201d the FCA said. \u201cWe are testing this idea with the government.\u201d<\/p>\n

The PRA also rebuffed the criticism, pointing out that it had proposed a reworking of bank capital requirements to loosen them on lending to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and on trade finance, partly based on information provided by the ICC.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs announced earlier this year, we plan to implement Basle 3.1 rules, including those relevant to trade finance, on 1 January 2027,\u201d the PRA said. \u201cThis date was chosen to give firms sufficient time to implement the final rules themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur implementation of Basle 3.1 is designed to lessen burdens on trade finance by reducing capital requirements for some relevant exposures, and incorporates feedback provided by the ICC in the consultation period,\u201d the authority added.<\/p>\n

The Department for Business and Trade said its new trade strategy would help UK business succeed in the global market.<\/p>\n

It added: \u201cThe UK plans to implement these reforms in January 2027, giving our firms certainty to plan for the future and allowing more time for greater clarity globally.\u201d \u2013 Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2025<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Britain\u2019s financial regulators are failing to push through vital reforms needed to unlock some \u00a322 billion (\u20ac25.5 billion)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":245265,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5226],"tags":[936,802,748,2000,299,5187,1699,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-245264","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brexit","8":"tag-bank-of-england","9":"tag-brexit","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-eu","12":"tag-europe","13":"tag-european","14":"tag-european-union","15":"tag-great-britain","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114812010229749213","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245264\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}