On its webpages on Solvency II, the FSA has published a clarification of its position in light of the media coverage of a proposed delay to the implementation of Solvency II to 1 January 2014.    

The FSA has done this because as part of the ongoing European Union negotiations on the Omnibus II Directive which are taking place at Council level, discussions have taken place on whether general transitional provisions are needed to delay the implementation of the new regime.

The FSA states that it is continuing to work on the assumption that the implementation date of Solvency II is 1 January 2013. The FSA says that "firms should continue their preparations, making clear assumptions and building flexibility into their plans so they can update them as more information becomes available".  

The webpage states that several proposals (details of which are given) have been discussed under the Hungarian Presidency (which ended on 30 June 2011), in particular:bifurcation of the Directive; and derogation of the solvency capital requirement for one year from 1 January 2013.  

The FSA says that at this stage there is no agreement on any of these proposals. Discussions will resume under the Polish Presidency, which began on 1 July 2011. Should the Council of the European Union reach an agreement on this issue, their proposal would need to be endorsed by the European Parliament to be formally adopted as part of the Omnibus II Directive.

The FSA has updated the section of its website dealing with Solvency II to provide an update for firms in the preapplication phase of the internal model approval process on its development of the quantitative techniques and tools and use of external review.

The European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) has announced that XBRL will be the reporting standard for the transmission of quantitative reporting templates. Interested parties are asked to respond to EIOPA’s technical consultation on the XBRL taxonomy.

The FSA has updated its webpage on Solvency II to say that it expects the next Presidency compromise text of Omnibus II to be published by the Council of the European Union in September. At that time, the FSA states that it will consider the European Parliament's comments (which were published on 27 July 2011) and the Presidency compromise text together, and seek to provide clarity as soon as it can.