LONDON - London Stock Exchange Group's listings pipeline is "looking up", helped by rule changes introduced this week that will not lower standards, CEO David Schwimmer said on Thursday.

Britain's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) rolled out on Monday the biggest reform of UK listings rules in decades in a bid to help London compete better with New York and, after Brexit, with European Union financial centres like Paris and Amsterdam.

The FCA has warned that the new rules will introduce more risk into markets by removing mandatory requirements and relying more on companies to make timely disclosures to investors

"I think the listings reform is helpful and is effective," Schwimmer said on a media call regarding the group's first-half results.

With elections in Britain over, a better economic outlook, and UK financial reforms being rolled out all mean that after a subdued couple of years globally for IPOs, "it does appear to be looking up from a listing perspective", Schwimmer said.

China-founded fast-fashion retailer Shein has filed papers with the FCA for potential London listing later this year, but campaigners are calling on the new Labour government to block it.

The campaigners accuse Shein of exploiting workers and damaging the environment, which the company refutes. Schwimmer declined to comment on Shein, but said any company would have to comply with FCA requirements.

"There is no lowering of standards on the LSE," Schwimmer said.

He singled out one element of this week's rule changes: companies will no longer be required to hold a time-consuming shareholder vote on many of their transactions.

(Reporting by Huw Jones; editing by Jason Neely and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)