The UK Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) announced proposals to reduce regulatory requirements for banks by deleting 37 individual reporting templates. The PRA set a goal for implementing the changes on January 1 2026 and estimated that this initial phase is expected to deliver a reduction in reporting burden for banks of approximately £26 million ($35.1mn) annually.
The proposals represent an initial set of targeted deletions of whole reporting templates that were inherited from European Union regulations. This is a first deliverable from the PRA’s strategic review of its banking data collections – the Future Banking Data project.
The vast majority of the templates being removed relate to financial reporting, improving an area which has been previously identified by firms as having overlapping and complex requirements.
The PRA has decided that these templates cover data which are either no longer necessary to support its work or are already available elsewhere. Their removal should benefit firms by reducing their administrative costs.
Rebecca Jackson, executive director for Authorisations, Regulatory Technology, and International Supervision and executive sponsor of Future Banking Data, said in a statement: “It’s essential to get the right data from firms in order to supervise them properly. But it’s also important that we do that as efficiently as possible and in a low-cost way, so they can focus on their core business and supporting their customers. Today’s announcement is another example of our ongoing work to enhance the proportionality of our regulation and support growth without risking the stability of firms or the wider financial system.”
The proposals build on a raft of simplifications the PRA has already made to reporting for insurers, reducing insurance reporting by one third. Firms are already benefitting from those changes.