This Policy Statement sets out our near final rules to accompany the application of the EU Benchmarks Regulation (BMR) from 1 January 2018.
The BMR aims to prevent harm that could affect those who use financial instruments or contracts or investment funds that reference benchmarks. Its system of regulation will replace to some extent the existing UK regulation of certain specified benchmarks and will apply to a much wider range of indices.
In CP17/17[4] (PDF) we consulted on the changes to our Handbook required to ensure that our Handbook is consistent with it. In this Policy Statement, we provide our feedback on the responses we received, and we publish near-final draft rules, as the legislative framework for our Handbook changes is not yet in place.
This consultation will primarily be of interest to:
• Benchmark administrators
• Firms that are already supervised and that contribute input data to benchmarks
We will make final rule changes to the Handbook once we have the necessary legislative authority to do so.
The BMR provides two mechanisms a benchmark administrator can use to gain permission to continue to issue benchmarks; authorisation and registration. Section 5.1 of CP17/17[4] (PDF) sets out a flow chart to help benchmark administrators decide whether they should be authorised or registered.
If you are already supervised by the FCA and you use or provide input data for a benchmark, you should consider whether you are a 'supervised user' or a 'supervised contributor' as defined in the BMR.
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