Biba head of compliance and training David Sparkes welcomes the delay and urges the FCA to publish its final rules.

The Treasury has confirmed the delay of the implementation of the Insurance Distribution Directive (IDD) until 1 October 2018.

The first proposals to push back the application date of the IDD were published by the European Commission in December last year.

In February the Treasury stated it would not transpose the IDD into national law until the outcome of the proposal to the directive’s application date was confirmed.

The European Council then approved the delay on 14 February 2018.

Back in December the British Insurance Brokers’ Association welcomed the proposed delay and highlighted that it was good news for brokers.

Brokers in the UK only received near final rules from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in January on how to implement the directive and would have struggled to get everything done in time.

Brokers
Reacting to the confirmation, Biba head of compliance and training David Sparkes said it was “certainly good for the market”.

“I applaud the HM Treasury for making this decision because it means they heard the industry’s concerns about not having enough time to get everything ready,” Sparkes noted.

However, he also pointed out that the industry was still waiting for the FCA to confirm that the already published near final rules will be the final rules.

“The last message we had about the near final rules was that they had no intention of changing them,” he explained.

Confirmation
He also urged brokers to have a look at the near final rules and work to comply with those, noting that “if there are changes they will be tiny”.

Sparkes added that while he did not have a time-frame for when the regulator would make this decision, he hoped it would be as soon as possible.

“Much is vested in them confirming that these are the rules,” he concluded.

“No one is going to start making changes to their systems before they have concrete evidence that these are the rules.”

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