Strategic Review of UK Capital Markets

As an outcome of the introduction of the UKLR sourcebook in July 2024, both the London Stock Market (LSE) and FTSE Russell made substantial changes to their guidelines. In July 2024, the LSE confirmed modifications to its Admission and Disclosure Standards to reflect the collapse of the previous premium and standard listing segments into the brand-new industrial company classification.

It then issued a summary and FAQs verifying its view when the final UKLR sourcebook was published in July 2024. One of the measures proposed as part of the Edinburgh Reforms in December 2022 was the facility of the Accelerated Settlement Taskforce, chaired by Charlie Geffen. The objective of the taskforce was to think about the possible benefits of the UK relocating to a T +1 securities settlement cycle and detail how this modification could be carried out.

On 19 February 2025, the UK government announced it accepted the recommendation and the UK market plans to move to a T +1 settlement cycle on 11 October 2027. Among the recommendations from the UK Secondary Capital Raising Evaluation led to the establishment in July 2022 of the Digitisation Taskforce, chaired by Sir Douglas Flint.

Strategic Corporate Scaling Tips for 2026

In July 2023, the taskforce published an Interim Report (read our summary here) that made a variety of recommendations, including: legislation needs to be advanced, and company articles of association altered, as quickly as practicable to stop the issuance of brand-new paper share certificates; the government needs to advance legislation to require dematerialisation of all share certificates at a future date; the government should speak with issuer and financier representatives on the preferred disposition of "residual" paper share interests and whether a time limit ought to be imposed for the identification of untraced Ultimate Beneficial Owners (UBOs); andintermediaries ought to have a commitment, as a condition of involvement in the cleaning and settlement system, to put in place typical technology that enables them to react to UBO requests from issuers within an extremely short time frame.

ANSR July UK PRs

Digitisation would target listed companies with a view to lowering costs and waste, and simplifying investor communication. The report proposes additional steps to guarantee that UBOs within the intermediated securities chain would have the ability to exercise investor rights that are currently just guaranteed for signed up investors, as well as procedures to boost interaction between business and UBOs.