UK chancellor Rachel Reeves has promised business bosses she will get rid of reporting rules for financial firms which were inherited from the EU, and which she argues are no longer fit for purpose in the UK.

In a meeting with fintech bosses at Downing Street on Tuesday, she said new draft legislation will “streamline regulation and boost the attractiveness of our capital markets.”

According to a government statement: “This new legislation will deliver reforms to the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) rules, which were inherited from the European Union.”

UK businesses have constantly complained about the huge amount of data and information they have to share with financial regulators, and have asked for reforms to the rulebook. The new legislation will allow the FCA to scrap any rule duplication that it sees as holding back UK firms from growing, and will introduce a framework it believes is better suited to the UK’s financial landscape.

The government has said the reforms “will mark the next milestone in delivering the government’s wholesale market reforms and will boost the attractiveness of the UK’s capital markets.”

The chancellor once again reminded industry leaders that making the UK’s financial regulation rulebook more competitive to support growth was a key pillar of the government’s broader Plan for Change. In recent months, the UK government has stepped up efforts to win the trust of businesses and investors, by promising to get rid of regulation that it says makes it harder for firms to do business in the country.

Easing the burden

According to the FCA: “The EU MiFID framework was transposed and implemented in the UK by a combination of Handbook rules, Treasury legislation, and directly applicable EU regulations.” The regulator says it has made necessary amendments to its Handbook in recent years so that it can “reflect the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union.”

Last year, the FCA said it had “identified opportunities to improve the quality of data reported to us and reduce reporting burdens on market participants.” And last month, chief executive Nikhil Rathi specifically mentioned FCA efforts to simplify reporting requirements for the insurance sector in order to reduce burden on businesses.

Another UK financial regulator, the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA), also promised in January this year to relax investment and reporting requirement rules for banks and insurers.

Sam Woods, head of the PRA, told a House of Lords financial services regulation committee that easing the burden of its rules on banks and insurers can be done without unleashing “a race to the bottom” on financial regulation, the FT reported.

The PRA has previously said it works closely with the FCA and cross-shares data so that firms which are regulated by both bodies only have to submit one set of required data.

These are all signs that the regulators are aligning their policies and practices with the government’s growth agenda, as ministers continue with plans to reshape the UK’s regulatory landscape.