On November 22, 2018, the U.K. Prudential Regulation Authority published a consultation paper entitled "The systemic risk buffer: Updates to the Statement of Policy," proposing minor updates to its Statement of Policy, "The PRA's approach to the systemic risk buffer." The consultation is relevant to "SRB institutions," which are: (i) ring-fenced bodies within the meaning in the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000; or (ii) large building societies that hold more than £25 billion in deposits (where one or more of the account holders is a small business) and shares (excluding deferred shares).

The PRA proposes to amend the Statement of Policy to:

  1. remove the statement that the PRA's approach to reviewing the SoP every two years is mandated by the SRB regulations;
  2. replace references to the PRA's April 2018 consultation, "The PRA's methodologies for setting Pillar 2 capital," with references to the finalized Statement of Policy that was subsequently published; and
  3. include references to the PRA's Supervisory Statement, "U.K. leverage ratio framework," that was recently updated to apply an additional leverage ratio buffer rate to SRB institutions.

As the proposals are of only a minor nature, the consultation period is short and comments on the consultation paper are invited by December 6, 2018.

The consultation paper (PRA CP 29/18) is available at: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/prudential-regulation/consultation-paper/2018/cp2918.pdf.

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