Navigating UK Trade Trends for 2026

As an outcome of the intro of the UKLR sourcebook in July 2024, both the London Stock Market (LSE) and FTSE Russell made consequential changes to their guidelines. In July 2024, the LSE verified modifications to its Admission and Disclosure Standards to show the collapse of the previous premium and basic listing segments into the brand-new industrial business category.

, chaired by Charlie Geffen. The objective of the taskforce was to think about the potential benefits of the UK moving to a T +1 securities settlement cycle and outline how this change might be executed.

On 19 February 2025, the UK government revealed it accepted the suggestion and the UK market plans to relocate to a T +1 settlement cycle on 11 October 2027. One of 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.

Professional Analysis of Mid-Market Global Markets

In July 2023, the taskforce published an Interim Report (read our summary here) which made a variety of suggestions, including: legislation needs to be brought forward, and company short articles of association changed, as quickly as practicable to stop the issuance of brand-new paper share certificates; the federal government ought to advance legislation to require dematerialisation of all share certificates at a future date; the federal government must seek advice from issuer and investor agents on the favored personality of "residual" paper share interests and whether a time frame ought to be imposed for the recognition of untraced Ultimate Beneficial Owners (UBOs); andintermediaries need to have a commitment, as a condition of participation in the clearing and settlement system, to put in place common innovation that enables them to react to UBO demands from issuers within an extremely brief time frame.

ANSR July UK PRs

Digitisation would target listed companies with a view to decreasing costs and waste, and simplifying investor interaction. The report proposes additional steps to ensure that UBOs within the intermediated securities chain would have the ability to work out shareholder rights that are presently only guaranteed for signed up investors, in addition to procedures to enhance communication in between business and UBOs.