The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is updating its rulebook to remove non-inclusive language and other potentially divisive terms.
The regulator revealed its plan as part of a joint discussion paper with the Bank of England and Prudential Regulatory Authority (PRA).
It noted that the PRA had already begun some of this work for its rulebook, but the FCA was now bringing greater focus on its own jurisdiction.
The FCA said it has taken steps more recently “to start identifying and removing non‑inclusive language” when creating new rules or amending existing ones.
For example, the FCA has identified some language in its handbook that it considers non‑inclusive, such as Chinese walls.
“These terms and expressions are typically found in older parts of the FCA handbook. However, we think there is more we could do,” it said.
“We plan to carry out work to explore the language in existing, and in some cases potentially long‑standing, provisions in our rules to assess how they can be made more inclusive.
“We have begun identifying terms and expressions that could be usefully replaced with more inclusive language or alternative expressions.”
It added that the replacements are not intended to alter what is required under any of the rules, so should not have cost implications for industry.