Insights

The introduction of the Consumer Protection Act highlights the Central Bank’s continued focus on consumer protection, with the specific purpose of closing the consumer protection gap in respect of consumer-hire agreements, hire-purchase agreements, including personal contracts plans (PCPs), and other forms of indirect credit such as Buy Now, Pay Later.

Grant Thornton understands that the implementation of IAF will be a significant transformation project for all regulated firms in Ireland. Drawing on a wealth of experience garnered from the implementation of the equivalent frameworks in the UK, Australia and Singapore, we can ensure your organisation is set up for success throughout the various stages of compliance.

Under the fitness and probity (‘F&P’) regime the Central Bank of Ireland (the ‘Central Bank’) assesses the suitability (the fitness and probity) of individuals put forward for a number of senior roles in regulated firms (referred to as pre-approval controlled functions or ‘PCFs’).

The Central Bank of Ireland (‘CBI’) has recently issued its latest Anti-Money Laundering Bulletin, focussing on the Virtual Asset Service Provider (‘VASP’) sector. In this bulletin, the CBI has provided its observations on a number of significant and widespread deficiencies across authorisation applications received from VASPs where roughly 90% of all applications are not meeting the required standard.

The Central Bank published the Cross Industry Guidance on Operational Resilience in December 2021 expecting firms to be in a position to evidence compliance within two years. It has now issued an Operational Resilience Maturity Assessment to firms in all sectors to assess the level of preparedness in the financial services industry.

This is the first article from Grant Thornton in our series on the Central Bank of Ireland (Central Bank)’s recovery plan Requirements. This introductory article provides an overview of the key requirements of the legislation, the timelines involved and main topics included in your recovery plan.

How Grant Thornton can help you understand the challenges surrounding the implementation and validation of machine learning techniques in IRB models.

All regulated financial services providers (RFSPs) with a PRISM impact rating of medium-low or above should now be preparing to submit their first outsourcing register using a new online return. The first submission is due by 31 July 2022.

While there has been much discussion of sustainability and ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) factors in relation to the banking sector in recent times, the reality is that much if not all regulatory instruments to date have focused on a subsection of ‘E’; climate change. Several factors have contributed to this including its actual and predicted impacts, political and social momentum, as well as a growing body of research that facilitates quantification of the associated risks

The Individual Accountability Framework regulation is intended to improve executive accountability within the Irish Financial Services sector by increasing the transparency between Regulated Financial Services Providers (RFSPs) and the Central Bank of Ireland (CBI), particularly of where accountabilities lie in organisations. It follows in the footsteps of similar regimes successfully enacted in the UK, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia.

The proposed legislation follows on from the reforms proposed in the Central Bank’s report on Behaviour and Culture of the Irish Retail Banks published in 2018, which highlighted the shortcomings in the culture of Irish retail banks. The Central Bank has emphasised that there has been a focus both nationally and internationally since the global financial crisis on “strengthening corporate culture, driving positive behaviour and increasing individual accountability”.

European regulatory authorities have introduced new legislation, referred to as the Investment Firms Regulation EU 2019/2033 (‘IFR’) and Investment Firms Directive EU 2019/2034 (‘IFD’), which aims to establish a tailored prudential framework for investment firms.