Jenrick or Charlie and Naga?  Make your choice because it is not acceptable to be indifferent to the greatest issue facing society.  Oh, hold on, of course it is.  Who cares?

 

Bathtime at the nEUsery

 

What a week for sober, mature political reflection.  The highlights:

 

  • Increasingly erratic French President Manny Macron wailed that those nasty British that he doesn’t like can’t have a vaccine that works because IT IS JUST NOT FAIR!!!  He then spat his dummy out, slammed his mouth shut and turned his head every time Brigitte tried to feed him.
  • Meanwhile European Commission President Ursula von der Lyingwheneverherlipsmove yelled that those horrible bullies at AstraZeneca were behaving so cruelly by delivering vaccines to a country that had promptly contracted for them and paid them properly when they should be giving them to her even though they didn’t have to and the she was going to skweam and skweam and SKWEAM and get her big brother to steal their lunch money.
  • Back at home it was always inevitable that if you ousted a man as vengeful and spiteful as Dominic Cummings he wasn’t going to let it lie.  And he has only just started.  No so much throwing Matt Hancock under the bus as head butting the driver and reversing back over the body.  And he is happy to answer any further questions Parliament may have.  And this from a man who refused to turn up the last time a parliamentary committee summoned him and who had made a quasi-effort to dress up.  Carrie beware.
  • Elsewhere, Norway, Iceland and Thailand also paused usage of the AstraZeneca vaccine but, you know, they aren’t in EU so the press couldn’t use it as a means of getting a petty Brexit point across so they ignored it.

 

From the Stratfordsphere

 

Two updates from FCA that should be aware of (that I cut and paste straight from their email which is why it looks a bit weird).

 

Countdown to submit your Directory Persons data for Solo-Regulated firms for Financial Services Register

Solo-regulated firms must conclude the certification of their staff in compliance with SMCR and submit their Directory Persons data via Connect by 31 March 2021.

Submitting in good time and ahead of the deadline will ensure there is enough time to ask questions and make sure your data is correct. Failure to submit required data in time would be a breach of regulatory reporting requirements and could lead to enforcement or supervisory action.

Please see the Directory Persons webpage for more information including commonly asked questions and user guides.

Fraud within the insurance sector

We are aware of similar frauds conducted within the insurance sector, whereby cybercriminals have gained access to email accounts of certain parties (including (re)insureds and (re)insurers) and were then able to make requests to amend recipients‘ bank details, resulting in transfers of significant sums to the fraudsters’ accounts.

We encourage market participants to be mindful of such scams especially when receiving requests to amend payment details. Firms should have sufficient controls in place, including agreed processes to verify and effect changes to third party bank details, as well as robust cybersecurity measures to detect and prevent email spoofing and cyber-squatting.

We are looking to organise a webinar in response to this second issue – which may become part of our LIIBA Snippets series.  Details to follow.

 

Hobbfuscating the issue

 

This morning Ms Hobbs refreshingly declared “I don’t think I have got much for the Chronicle this week.  Then this arrived.  Sigh.

 

Lloyd’s Europe:

  • We are in discussions with LIC SA over their plans to review their operating model. Next week, Lloyd’s will be holding a webinar for senior c-suite level brokers (that is senior c-suite, not just any c-suite riff raff). Invites have been sent out to the contacts Lloyd’s have here but details of the webinar and options being discussed are attached.

 

DA Programme:

  • MAT on DCM (BARS replacement) has commenced. LIIBA’s Facilities Committee recently set up a sub-group to monitor progress and record issues affecting brokers. More details will be discussed at our Facilities Forum on the 29th March (details attached) but we would recommend any brokers interested in reviewing details about DCM can do so by accessing the following link: https://www.lloyds.com/conducting-business/delegated-authorities/the-delegated-authority-programme/business-readiness-toolkit/delegated-contract-manager
  • New information loaded on to this area of the site show examples of data capture required for binder registration (last option noted on the page). This will enable brokers to understand the differing requirements between data currently entered in to BAR (I thought we aren’t allowed to enter bars until June or something?) and DCM.

 

Lloyd’s Bulletins:

We have been liaising with Lloyd’s regarding the new bewildering (harsh but fair) layout of Market Bulletins. I’m pleased to say there is indeed a new and improved layout that can be accessed via the following link: https://www.lloyds.com/news-and-insights/market-communications/market-bulletins .

The main changes are:

All bulletins appear in one paginated table, with the most recent at the top

Bulletins can be filtered by date

A search function has been added to find bulletins based on their title, category and signatory

Lloyd’s have noted they are happy to discuss any other changes we feel would be an improvement, so let us know if there are any other frustrations with the site.

 

Seminarl thoughts

 

If you would like to attend the Facilities Forum Jackie mentioned above, you can register here

 

We have arranged a session with the City of London Corporation to showcase its proposals for the post pandemic City.  This will take place on 13th April and will be sending the invite start of w/c 29th March

 

On Monday at 9am we have our session “Be on point online” – how to make an impact in virtual meetings.  If you would like to attend but haven’t registered, you can access the session here.

 

Something fishy, Rishi?

 

Two totally unrelated stories emerged this week.  First FCA announced that it was initiating criminal proceedings against Nat West for failed anti-money laundering controls.  The bank has accepted £264m in cash deposits from an “unnamed client” who appears to be a Bradford based gold trader called Fowler Oldfield (formed by Robbie Fowler and Mike Oldfield).  Then today it was announced that Nat West had bought back £1.1 billion of its own shares from the government.  Look out next week for news that it has been revealed that Nat West bank has an interest in a chain of pizza restaurants in Colombia that constantly offer a six-for-the-price-of-one deal.  And that a director of the chain is one R Sunak.

 

 

That’s it.  I am off to the Angel Gabriel Batistuta Centre in Tonbridge to get vaccinated.  And none of that foreign muck neither.  I want the proud, British AstraZeneca!!! (aren’t they Swedish – Ed)

 

And, yes, I do know I don’t look old enough.