Post-Brexit boost for the City as EU rules on stock market research scrapped

Under the new proposals, research and trading fees will be combined in a single payment.

Sarah Pritchard, an FCA director, said: “High-quality, easily accessible investment research is a vital part of a healthy, dynamic capital market. It supports the decisions investors make.

“We are proposing to provide more options on how to pay for such research, helping boost competition and making it easier to buy research across borders.”

The regulations were part of Brussels’ MiFID II rulebook, which were introduced in early 2018 before the UK quit the EU.

Before this fund managers would get their company research for free from stockbrokers.

The overhaul led to a dearth of research on UK companies, as brokers cut back on offering research.

“One major reason for the City of London’s current malaise is a dearth of investment research to inform decisions,” said Fraser Thorne, founder of Edison, the investment research firm.

“Asset managers and institutional investors remain unaware of the breadth of opportunities, and innovative new firms are left to languish in obscurity.”