Our areas of focus for the year ahead take into account the external environment and the new regulatory framework. They are based on this being the final year of our 3-year strategy.
Protecting consumers: We will continue to test higher standards through embedding the Consumer Duty. We will seek to support long-term financial wellbeing for consumers and unlock innovation in retail investment markets through our work on the Advice Guidance Boundary Review. We will work with regulatory partners to ensure pension products deliver value for money. We are also working to ensure that consumers better engage with their pensions. We continue to develop our use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to help prevent fraud and scams to improve the experience of consumers and firms when they contact us.
Ensuring market integrity: We monitor risks in markets and take action where appropriate. We will finalize far-reaching capital markets reforms. We will continue to lead the debate on how the right form of regulation can support growth for UK markets, with a number of significant policy changes in or approaching consultation. We will continue to invest in our data and technology to support rigorous market oversight.
Promoting effective competition: We will continue to promote competition and innovation to deliver good outcomes for consumers. We will identify where more effective competition can better deliver fair value outcomes under the Consumer Duty. We will continue to look to market reforms that bring the benefits of innovation and digitalisation.
Our secondary international competitiveness and growth objectives: We will focus on embedding our secondary objectives to facilitate international competitiveness of the UK economy. By enabling the drivers of productivity, we can facilitate medium to long-term growth and competitiveness in a way that can secure better outcomes for all consumers, including through greater variety, price and quality of products and services.
We want to improve the attractiveness and global reach of UK wholesale markets. We will provide opportunities for financial services companies to invest, innovate and expand in the UK through our Sandboxes and Innovation Pathways, TechSprint programs and our leadership of the Global Financial Innovation Network. We will continue to make it quicker and easier for firms and people to apply for authorization and we will strengthen our data collection processes to reduce the burden on businesses.