The UK government wants to rewrite the rules designed to keep the country’s banks and financial institutions stable – again. The so-called Edinburgh reforms announced recently by UK chancellor Jeremy Hunt will “unlock investment and turbocharge growth in towns and cities across the UK”, he says.
The government is certainly heading in the right direction in some areas, including new measures on sustainable finance. Hunt has promised a 2023 update to its original green finance strategy, published in 2019. This includes regulating the environmental social and governance (ESG) ratings providers from which financial firms get data for green investment and lending decisions.
