SEAR Regime – 2 hours

Course summary:

Following the financial crisis a decade ago, trust in the financial services sector remains low. A common refrain is that those bankers responsible for the crisis were not held accountable, instead often leaving with significant bonuses.

In light of this, there has been a move amongst various financial regulators to promote individual accountability within the industry so that key decision makers within a firm can be properly held to account when things go wrong. Notably, the FCA introduced the Senior Managers and Certification Regime (SMCR) in 2016 which was extended to solo-regulated firms in December last year.

The Central Bank has now followed suit and has issued proposals for a Senior Executive Accountability Regime (SEAR). The legislation needed to implement the regime is expected in the near future. So what are the components of the new regime? And what does your firm need to do to implement the regime?

Course content:

We will discuss the new regime in detail, including:

• the firms that the regime will apply to;
• who the senior executive functions (SEFs) will be;
• drafting statements of responsibility for SEFs;
• creating responsibility maps;
• the conduct rules to be introduced alongside the new regime.