The UK's financial regulator has handed asset managers an early Christmas present by allowing senior staff more time to prepare for wide-reaching new conduct rules.

The Financial Conduct Authority said on Wednesday that plans to extends the Senior Managers and Certification Regime to all sectors of the UK’s financial services industry would now apply to insurers from late 2018 and other institutions, including money managers, in mid to late 2019. An exact implementation date is to be announced by the Treasury. The new rules, which have applied to banks since 2016, intend to improve individual accountability all over the financial services industry. Because so few executives have been held personally accountable for trading scandals that affected the foreign exchange, inter-bank lending and gold markets, ordinary investors are distrustful of large financial institutions. The FCA wants to change this.