Prudential Regulation Authority Rulebook

13.1

The PRA has a discretionary power to waive or modify rules under section 138A of FSMA, where the application of rules would be unduly burdensome or would not achieve the purposes for which the rules were made, and so long as the waiver or modification would not adversely affect the advancement of the PRA’s objectives.

13.2

The PRA expects firms, as part of their forward planning, to anticipate when they may come into scope of different PRA and Bank resolution-related policies, including OCIR. Firms should plan for this well in advance and consider how they will transition to meet these policies. For new and growing banks, a similar expectation is set out in SS3/21 ‘Non-systemic UK banks: The Prudential Regulation Authority’s approach to new and growing banks’.^[24]

13.3

Depending on the circumstances of firms, and whether they could anticipate coming into scope of the Operational Continuity Part, the PRA may consider the granting of a waiver or modification of the relevant requirement or requirements to postpone the implementation of OCIR policy to allow for an appropriate implementation period. Examples for which the PRA may consider granting a waiver could include certain cases of mergers or acquisitions, or cases in which a firm performs a critical function when it previously did not perform any critical functions but met one of the conditions in Operational Continuity 1.1.