In an address to the Parliament on November 9, 2020, the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer presented a new vision for the country’s financial services sector as the UK transitions out of the European Union. In presenting the Financial Services Bill, Chancellor Rishi Sunak expressed the intention to make the UK “more open, more technologically advanced, and a world leader in the use of green finance.”
After touching on the topics of equivalence, market access, and technology (including digital currencies), Chancellor Sunak made an important announcement about environmental protection: the UK intends to make Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TFCD) mandatory by financial institutions and large companies by 2025, create a UK Green Technical Advisory Group, and implement a green taxonomy and join the International Platform on Sustainable Finance to support the development of common international standards on taxonomies. In 2021, the UK also intends to issue the first in a series of Sovereign Green Bonds aimed at supporting projects designed to fight climate change, financing infrastructure investment, and creating green jobs throughout the UK.