This speech is focussed on the PRA. Page 9 5. The UK hosts around 150 branches and around 100 subsidiaries of international banks. These include branches and subsidiaries of all the banks identified by the Financial Stability Board (FSB) as Globally Systemically Important Banks (G-SIBs). The UK hosts around 200 branches and subsidiaries of international insurers. 6. For banks, see PRA Supervisory Statement 5/21 – 'International banks: The PRA's approach to branch and subsidiary supervision', July 2021. For insurers, the PRA’s current approach is set out in PRA Supervisory Statement 2/18 – ‘International insurers: the PRA’s approach to branch authorisation and supervision’, March 2018. During 2023, the PRA plans to complete its assessment of any outstanding branches of international insurers currently within the Temporary Permissions Regime as well as to set out its proposed supervisory approach to branches. See ‘Letter from Charlotte Gerken and Shoib Khan “Insurance Supervision: 2023 priorities”’, January 2023. The PRA also plans to remove capital requirements for branches of international insurers operating in the UK as part of the upcoming Solvency UK package. See 'Fundamental Spreads − speech by Sam Woods', 20 February 2023. 7. The PRA currently has 79 supervisory cooperation and information sharing Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) in place with authorities across 51 jurisdictions. Since the UK left the EU, the PRA has signed 34 MoUs with EU institutions and Member States. The PRA is in the process of seeking to agree eight further MoUs with non-EU countries. 8. New agreements include those with New Zealand and Australia.
They should tell people whether we are meeting our commitments to regulate in a way that harnesses the UK’s strengths as a global financial centre, that maintains trust, and that is tailored to UK circumstances. They should also be designed in a way that is consistent with how Parliament has  Page 8  ranked our objectives – they should make it easy to see how we have pursued our new objective properly subject to advancing our primary objectives. For example, we know that the operational effectiveness of the PRA is important for the UK’s success as a global financial centre. That is why we have committed to increasing the frequency with which we report on our efficiency handling regulatory transactions, including authorisations. We will also provide more information on the time taken to determine cases and provide new breakdowns of these metrics by type of firm. [25] Amongst other things, this will help people understand how long it takes to set up a new bank or insurer – which clearly matters for the UK’s competitiveness. Conclusion Let me briefly sum up. Be in no doubt that our new objective will lead to big changes in how we make rules. We have already been working hard developing our ideas about what competitiveness means for the financial services industry and how it is connected to growth. We have a plan for pursuing the new objective. That plan recognizes the hierarchy of our objectives and it is focussed on what we can control.