Senior Managers / Governance in United Kingdom

Key dates

2026-11-02

The FCA published an earlier statement warning about demands for repayment of disguised-remuneration scheme loans, the possible need for a Validation Order and undue pressure in debt collection.

2026-11-05

The FCA published the intervention and the restrictions agreed with Ethica Resolve Limited and West 28th Street Limited.

Suggested considerations

• Firms servicing or collecting historic disguised-remuneration loans should identify affected portfolios, pause demands and litigation activity falling within the FCA restrictions, and confirm the precise scope of any agreed requirements with the FCA.
• Ethica should complete and evidence the required consumer communications, including the explanation that payment is not currently enforceable, and maintain records of recipients, delivery attempts and unresolved cases.
• Compliance teams should review whether correspondence, telephone contact, default notices, letters of claim and court instructions could create undue pressure or inaccurately imply that immediate payment is legally required.
• Firms should establish a vulnerability-identification and support process covering consumers experiencing health, financial or comprehension difficulties, with appropriate escalation, reasonable adjustments and management information.
• Debt servicers should verify the creditor's ownership, the chain of assignment, the original lender's regulatory status and any applicable consumer-credit permissions or exemptions before pursuing repayment.
• Legal and compliance teams should assess whether any proposed enforcement requires an FCA Validation Order or other court permission, recognising that a Validation Order is not guaranteed and that the FCA has stated that the debt may remain unenforceable if required permission is not granted.
• Firms should ensure that no default judgment is sought in the affected claims and that consumers continue to receive accurate information that formal court documents should not be ignored.
• Senior management should review outsourcing, agency and oversight arrangements where an authorised firm acts for an unauthorised debt purchaser, including conduct risk, consumer-outcome monitoring and escalation to the FCA where harm may have occurred.

What changed

Ethica must write to affected consumers explaining that they do not currently have an enforceable obligation to pay and therefore do not need to make payment at this stage. Ethica must not make further demands for payment from affected consumers in the current proposed court claim while the relevant issues remain unresolved. Ethica and West 28 must not seek default judgments against consumers who have not responded to a legal claim. Ethica must identify affected vulnerable consumers and put additional protections in place.

Key dates

2026-01-19

The PRM sourcebook and related POATR regime rules and amendments referred to in PMB 67 came into force.

2026-11-04

FCA published Primary Market Bulletin 67, launched the consultation on Knowledge Base amendments through GC26/8, and published the new PMB and ESS information.

2026-12-09 Deadline

Deadline for comments on GC26/8 consultation proposals concerning consequential Knowledge Base amendments.

Suggested considerations

• Sponsors should consider mapping every current and planned AI use case to the relevant sponsor workstream, identifying activities where AI assistance is unsuitable or requires enhanced review, including complex negotiations, board-level strategic advice and definitive ethical or legal accountability.
• Sponsors should consider documenting named human responsibility for validating AI outputs, correcting hallucinations and omissions, independently challenging analysis, and approving final sponsor work products.
• Compliance and risk teams may wish to review AI policies and controls for approved-tool restrictions, consumer-tool blocking or limitation, confidential-information handling, third-party adviser use, supplier confidentiality, model changes, and accountability for both information entered and output received.
• Sponsors should consider whether prompts, outputs, transcripts, drafts and related review evidence constitute records, and whether retained files demonstrate and permit verification of the basis for material judgements in accordance with applicable sponsor record-keeping arrangements.
• Primary-market legal and compliance teams should review employee and former-employee offering exemptions against PRM 1.4.12(2)(c), particularly where employee incentive or share schemes rely on the prospectus exemption.
• Interested firms should consider submitting comments on GC26/8 by 9 December 2026 and reviewing the final Knowledge Base amendments once published.
• ESS administrators should consider adopting the Update My Profile process, ensuring that profile changes are supported by a stated reason and that any impact on open cases is selected deliberately.
• Issuers and data users may wish to assess the new NSM interface and prepare for future FCA MIRA issuer profiles, API access and changes to the Official List, while continuing to maintain existing disclosure submission processes until further FCA instructions are issued.

What changed

The FCA has launched an enhanced NSM interface and intends to develop FCA MIRA, combining a modernised NSM, a modernised Official List, issuer profile pages, reference and short-position data, and an API for bulk access. The FCA has not introduced a new AI-specific rule in PMB 67, but its review provides clear supervisory expectations for sponsors: AI may support research, summarisation, drafting, due diligence, quality assurance and other work, but must not replace sponsor professional judgement, independent challenge, accountability or conclusions reached after due and careful enquiry.

Key dates

2026-11-03

DP26/2 opened and was first published by the FCA jointly with the DWP and TPR.

2026-12-22 Deadline

Deadline for responses to the Guided Retirement policy consultation.

Suggested considerations

• Firms should consider submitting responses to the DWP Guided Retirement Policy Team by 22 December 2026, including evidence on feasibility, consumer outcomes, product design, costs, data and operational dependencies.
• Contract-based providers should assess how potential Guided Retirement requirements could interact with their existing COBS 9B targeted-support processes, governance, suitability or appropriateness controls, customer communications and record keeping.
• Providers, trustees and administrators should map current retirement journeys and identify gaps in member data, administration systems, payment capabilities, transfer processes, decumulation products and management information.
• Scheme operators should consider which default retirement-income models could meet the emerging policy objectives, including approaches involving staged or flexible access and protection against longevity risk, while avoiding premature conclusions before the FCA rules and DWP regulations are consulted on.
• Governance teams should establish ownership for Guided Retirement readiness and monitor the FCA, DWP and TPR consultations expected to follow, including the FCA consultation on draft rules and guidance planned for the second half of 2027.
• Firms should assess interactions with other workplace-pension reforms, particularly value-for-money requirements, consumer-support arrangements, conflicts management and member communications, because independent commentary has identified a risk of overlapping or inconsistent standards.

What changed

The Discussion Paper sets out initial joint proposals for implementing Guided Retirement, under which workplace pension schemes would provide a clear, high-quality default route into retirement for eligible savers who do not make complex active choices. The framework is intended to apply across both FCA-regulated contract-based schemes and trust-based schemes, with the FCA required to introduce rules that achieve, so far as possible, the same outcomes as the duties imposed on trustees by the Pension Schemes Act 2026.

Key dates

2026-11-03

FCA publishes PS26/22 and final rules for the ESG ratings regime; Part 1 of Annex D comes into force.

2027-02-01

FCA Pre-Application Support Service is expected to be available to prospective ESG ratings applicants.

2027-06-24 Deadline

FCA authorisation gateway opens. Providers with annual revenue of £500,000 or more should apply during the first application period, from 24 June to 29 July 2027.

2027-07-29 Deadline

End of the first staggered authorisation application period for providers with annual revenue of £500,000 or more.

2027-07-30

Second staggered authorisation application period opens for providers with annual revenue below £500,000.

2027-08-31 Deadline

End of the second staggered authorisation application period for providers with annual revenue below £500,000.

2028-06-29 Deadline

The ESG ratings regime takes effect. In-scope providers must be FCA-authorised and hold the relevant permission before carrying on the regulated activity, unless an exclusion applies; unauthorised activity may breach the FSMA general prohibition and constitute a criminal offence.

Suggested considerations

• Firms should map all ESG scores, assessments, opinions and rating products against article 63U, PERG 2.3 and the FCA perimeter guidance, including whether the firm both produces and makes the rating available and whether it is likely to influence a specified investment decision.
• Potential applicants should identify the legal entity requiring authorisation or variation of permission and assess whether an exemption applies, including exemptions connected with other regulated activities, investment research, fund marketing, benchmarks and overseas persons.
• Firms should perform a gap analysis against PS26/22 covering transparency disclosures, methodology governance, data validation, quality assurance, record retention, complaints handling, rated-entity engagement and advance notification of material methodology changes.
• Providers should consider documenting controls for AI and other automated processes, data limitations, model or methodology changes, reproducibility of rating outcomes and the competence, independence and integrity of rating personnel.
• Compliance teams may wish to review conflicts arising from charging models, consulting or advisory services, commercial relationships, remuneration and personal transactions, and determine how conflicts will be prevented, managed and disclosed.
• Firms should assess governance, senior-management accountability, systems and controls, outsourcing oversight, UK presence expectations and financial-resources and wind-down arrangements relevant to the authorisation application.
• Potential applicants should consider engaging with the FCA Pre-Application Support Service from February 2027 and preparing the application materials before the relevant staggered application window.
• Users of ESG ratings should consider reviewing supplier due diligence, data procurement, investment governance and sustainability disclosure processes so that ratings are interrogated rather than treated as definitive or objectively comparable ESG measures.

What changed

Providing an ESG rating becomes a regulated activity under article 63U of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Regulated Activities) Order, subject to the statutory perimeter and exclusions. A provider is generally in scope where it produces and makes the rating available, carries on the activity by way of business, and the rating is likely to influence a decision to make a specified investment; merely distributing another provider's rating is outside this activity.

Key dates

2026-11-03

PRA published CP15/26 for consultation.

2026-12-04

Northern Ireland Assembly consultation on the Credit Unions (Amendment) Bill closes; this is a legislative scrutiny date, not a stated PRA consultation deadline.

Suggested considerations

• Compliance teams may wish to track the Northern Ireland Assembly’s passage and final commencement provisions for the Credit Unions (Amendment) Bill rather than treating the consultation proposals as final requirements.
• Credit unions considering member referrals should assess governance, counterparty due diligence, member eligibility and service-specific responsibilities, and consider whether contracts prevent inappropriate transfer of credit risk back to the referring credit union.
• Credit unions considering loan participation should consider documenting originator and participant roles, borrower relationship ownership, underwriting and monitoring responsibilities, security and enforcement rights, default allocation, concentration limits, large-exposure treatment, provisioning and capital treatment.
• Boards and senior managers may wish to assess whether existing risk appetite, lending policies, management information, stress testing and internal controls are proportionate to the additional activities contemplated by the PRA.
• Firms may wish to map existing lending-limit, large-exposure, provisioning and capital processes against the proposed treatment of participation loans and identify data or systems changes needed before implementation.
• Credit unions that do not intend to undertake the new activities may wish to document that decision and retain evidence that their existing governance and control framework remains appropriate for their current business model.
• Affected firms may wish to monitor the PRA’s final policy statement and any revised SS2/23 or Rulebook text before committing to new products or contractual arrangements.

What changed

The PRA proposes amendments to the Credit Unions Part of the PRA Rulebook and SS2/23 – Supervising Credit Unions. Member referral arrangements would be treated as an additional activity; the receiving credit union would retain responsibility for the referred member’s credit risk, and firms would be expected to maintain effective governance, due diligence and clear contractual allocation of responsibilities.

Key dates

2026-11-03

PRA publication date for DP2/26 and FCA publication date for the parallel credit-union discussion paper DP26/1.

2027-03-05 Deadline

Deadline for responses to DP2/26, submitted to [email protected].

Suggested considerations

• Firms should consider whether to submit evidence or a response to DP2/26 by 2027-03-05, addressing the questions most relevant to their size, business model, activities and growth plans.
• Compliance teams may wish to map current prudential, reporting, governance and operational-resilience requirements against the proposed distinction between small and simple firms and larger or more complex credit unions.
• Credit unions considering growth should assess whether board expertise, senior-management capacity, capital and liquidity planning, credit-risk controls, member-servicing capability and operational resilience will scale with membership and lending volumes.
• Firms may wish to review governance and controls for aggregator-driven growth, mortgage lending, fixed-rate products, outsourced activities, third-party providers and CUSO relationships, because these are identified as areas where future safeguards or supervisory expectations may develop.
• Boards and senior managers should consider how existing responsibilities under Rule 11.5(3) of the Credit Unions Part of the PRA Rulebook are evidenced, including oversight of regulatory compliance, risk management and business growth.
• Credit unions may wish to evaluate their current solvent-exit and wind-down arrangements, including the feasibility of transferring business, selling a loan book, restructuring or maintaining continuity of member services.
• Trade associations and service organisations may wish to provide data on compliance costs, asset-based thresholds, barriers to permitted activities, common-bond expansion, CUSO use and the practical effects of different prudential models.
• Firms should monitor subsequent PRA and FCA consultations and any legislative proposals; no implementation plan or transition timetable has been established at this stage.

What changed

No rules, thresholds, permissions or supervisory requirements have been amended by DP2/26. The regulators are seeking evidence on six outcomes: proportionate regulation; consumer confidence and protection; competition and innovation; long-term sustainability; operational resilience and risk management; and orderly market exit.

Key dates

2026-11-02

The FCA published its expectations for lenders making voluntary motor finance settlement offers; the page was updated on 2026-11-03.

2026-10-01

Barclays Partner Finance identified customers whose complaints had been acknowledged on or before this date as a cohort for some early settlement offers.

2027-02-16

The scheduled start of the legal challenges to the FCA motor finance compensation scheme.

2027-03-03

The scheduled end date of the hearing window for the legal challenges to the FCA motor finance compensation scheme.

Suggested considerations

• Firms considering early settlements should assess each offer against the maximum redress that would have been available under the FCA motor finance compensation scheme, rather than using a lower discretionary amount.
• Compliance teams may wish to establish governance and second-line review for the methodology, calculations, customer segmentation and approval of settlement communications.
• Firms should consider notifying the FCA before making offers and supplying the FCA factsheet with each customer communication.
• Offer letters should clearly state the amount, calculation basis, the full-and-final effect of acceptance, the inability to claim more later, the option to reject and remain within the scheme, and the consequences for the existing complaint.
• Firms should consider allowing at least one month for customers to respond and retaining evidence that customers had sufficient information and time to make an informed decision.
• Marketing, customer-service and complaints teams should avoid language suggesting FCA endorsement, approval or validation of an individual offer.
• Firms should consider controls to prevent accepted settlements from being subsequently processed as scheme claims or referred to the Financial Ombudsman Service.
• Motor finance lenders should continue preparing for the compensation scheme and progress complaints as far as possible during the partial suspension, even if scheme compensation is not currently calculated or paid.

What changed

Lenders may make voluntary settlement offers before the partially suspended FCA motor finance compensation scheme is implemented, but the FCA expects each offer to provide at least the compensation the customer would receive under the scheme, calculated by reference to the relevant agreement and the scheme methodology. Firms intending to make offers are expected to notify the FCA, provide the FCA factsheet to customers, and ensure communications are clear, fair and not misleading.

Key dates

2026-10-07

PRA published CP13/26 proposing automatic indexation of in-scope regulatory thresholds every five years, with a proposed first update on 1 July 2031.

2026-10-14

PRA published PS19/26 setting out the final policy on high loan-to-income lending.

2026-10-22

PRA published CP14/26 consultation on phase 2 of SM&CR reform.

2026-10-26

Bank of England and FCA published the 2026 survey results on artificial intelligence and machine learning in UK financial services.

2026-10-28

PRA rules and supervisory statement on high-LTI lending commenced; the firm-specific 15% cap was removed and the revised monitoring and governance framework became effective.

2027-01-22 Deadline

Consultation deadline reported for the PRA and FCA phase 2 SM&CR consultations.

2027-02-07 Deadline

Consultation deadline for CP13/26 and the associated discussion of additional thresholds potentially suitable for indexation.

2031-07-01

Proposed date for the first automatic update of in-scope regulatory thresholds under CP13/26, subject to final policy and implementation.

Suggested considerations

• Mortgage lenders should assess their high-LTI lending strategy against risk appetite, capital and credit-risk tolerances now that the firm-specific 15% cap has been removed.
• Mortgage lenders should establish or validate rolling four-quarter calculations for individual high-LTI flows and retain evidence supporting any adjustments, limits or risk appetite decisions.
• Relevant firms should review governance, underwriting, affordability, concentration and stress-testing controls to demonstrate prudent management of high-LTI lending under the new PRA expectations.
• Compliance and regulatory-reporting teams should monitor the PRA’s quarterly aggregate high-LTI publications and assess whether lending plans remain consistent with the FPC’s aggregate 15% limit.
• PRA-regulated firms should map current Rulebook and supervisory-statement thresholds against the 128 proposed in-scope thresholds and identify systems, permissions, reporting and policy documents that would require future updates.
• Affected firms should consider submitting responses to CP13/26 and its associated discussion questions by 7 February 2027, particularly where indexation could alter regulatory categorisation, reporting, capital, liquidity, governance or investment-flexibility requirements.
• SM&CR compliance teams should assess CP14/26 against current senior-manager responsibilities, certification processes, fitness and propriety controls, governance maps, handover arrangements and recordkeeping, while treating the proposals as non-final.
• Firms should monitor the related FCA SM&CR consultation and coordinate any response because implementation may require changes across PRA and FCA regimes.

What changed

PS19/26 removes the firm-specific 15% limit on high-LTI mortgage lending, while retaining the Financial Policy Committee’s aggregate 15% limit as the benchmark for overall market lending. Firms’ individual high-LTI flows and any required adjustments will be assessed on a rolling four-quarter basis, whereas aggregate high-LTI lending will continue to be monitored quarterly. The final rules and supervisory statement also introduce governance and risk-management expectations, and the PRA intends to publish aggregate high-LTI flow data quarterly.

Key dates

2026-10-29

FCA published Fair value in consumer finance and associated supervisory commentary; the examples are effective as supervisory guidance and do not create new rules.

Suggested considerations

• Compliance teams may wish to inventory every financial and non-financial charge across each product's full customer journey and lifetime, including contingent, arrears, repeat and cumulative charges.
• Firms should consider refreshing fair value assessments to reconcile current pricing and charging data with quantified or otherwise evidenced customer benefits, product limitations, service quality and foreseeable risks.
• Firms may wish to document how assumptions, management information, customer outcomes and governance challenge support each fair value conclusion, with clear ownership and audit trails.
• Firms should consider segmenting analysis by relevant customer groups, including vulnerability characteristics, credit risk, product usage, distribution channel and customers experiencing financial difficulty, and testing whether outcomes differ materially.
• Compliance teams may wish to establish monitoring for arrears, complaints, cancellations, usage, enquiries, refunds, waivers, repeat charges and customer understanding, with defined escalation thresholds and remediation options.
• Firms should consider testing whether fees and charges are communicated clearly, prominently and at the point customers need them to make informed decisions, including through customer-understanding testing.
• Firms may wish to review controls for grace periods, charge caps, fee waivers and refunds and evidence that those controls are appropriately designed, operating effectively and reducing foreseeable harm.
• Where late or missed repayment charges are justified by reasonable costs, firms should consider documenting the cost methodology, evidence relied upon and relationship between the methodology and the charge level, alongside the separate fair value assessment.

What changed

The publication does not amend the FCA Handbook or create new mandatory actions. It consolidates good and poor practice under the existing price and value outcome in PRIN 2A.4 and FG22/5, including the requirement for manufacturers under PRIN 2A.4.2R(2) to conduct and regularly review value assessments at intervals appropriate to the product's nature and duration.

Key dates

2026-10-26

Current date and FCA publication context for the review; firms have been told to take prompt action, but this is not a statutory compliance deadline.

2028-12-01

The FCA says the point-in-time publication may be treated as retired by December 2028 if it has not been removed sooner; this is not stated as a mandatory implementation deadline.

Suggested considerations

• Compliance teams may wish to map how the firm identifies direct defence businesses, defence supply-chain participants, dual-use technology businesses and relevant customers that are not accurately captured by SIC codes.
• Firms should consider testing whether onboarding and enhanced due diligence requests are risk-based, non-duplicative and proportionate to the individual customer's activities, jurisdictions, products, end use and supply chain, rather than triggered solely by a broad defence-sector label.
• Firms should consider reviewing blanket exclusions, revenue thresholds, automatic escalation rules and approval stages affecting defence customers, documenting why any retained restrictions are justified by legal, financial-crime, reputational or commercial-risk considerations.
• Firms should consider defining and governing reputational, ESG and sustainability criteria used in account opening, servicing, product access, restriction or closure decisions, with evidence that the criteria are consistently applied and aligned with stated risk appetite.
• Firms should consider establishing or improving management information covering defence-sector identification, application volumes, approval and rejection rates, onboarding duration, repeated information requests, escalation frequency, restrictions, closures, complaints and outcomes by customer risk category.
• Senior management and relevant committees may wish to review whether the available information allows them to challenge inconsistent treatment, unexplained delays or outcomes that arise from internal processes rather than the customer's actual risk.
• Where legally permissible and appropriate, firms should consider keeping applicants informed about additional checks, progress and likely decision timescales, and explaining decisions sufficiently to reduce avoidable uncertainty.
• Firms should continue to apply customer due diligence, enhanced due diligence, sanctions and other financial-crime controls required by applicable law; the FCA's message is to make those controls targeted and proportionate, not to reduce them.

What changed

No binding regulatory obligations or new thresholds have been introduced. The FCA has nevertheless written to firms providing banking services to SMEs and expects prompt action under existing requirements. Firms should review whether onboarding, enhanced due diligence, escalation, servicing, restriction and closure processes distinguish among different defence activities and reflect the specific customer, geographic, product, supply-chain, end-use, financial-crime and reputational risks.

Key dates

2026-10-23

The FCA published the multi-firm review findings and associated supervisory expectations.

Suggested considerations

• Firms should consider performing a documented gap assessment against the review findings, including whether their conflict framework reflects the substance of UK activities rather than only formal delegation or legal arrangements.
• Compliance teams may wish to refresh business-model and transaction-level conflict inventories to cover multiple funds, vintages, continuation and evergreen vehicles, affiliated businesses, shared services, capital-structure conflicts, remuneration, valuation, financing, redemptions, asset transfers and exit decisions.
• Firms should consider testing whether conflict identification occurs repeatedly from origination through valuation, allocation, monitoring, restructuring and exit, rather than only at onboarding or transaction approval.
• Firms may wish to define and evidence materiality thresholds, escalation triggers, accountable decision-makers and governance forums for complex or material conflicts, including when engagement with LPs or LP advisory committees is appropriate.
• For cross-fund transfers and continuation transactions, firms should consider independent challenge, valuation oversight, analysis of competing investor interests, documented alternatives and evidence supporting the fairness of the outcome; investor consent or disclosure alone may not demonstrate adequate management.
• Firms should consider reviewing gifts and entertainment controls beyond monetary thresholds, including purpose, recipient, frequency, patterns, inducement risk, approvals, record keeping and compliance monitoring.
• Firms may wish to assess whether information barriers use physical, organisational and system controls, with monitoring and oversight of information sharing, rather than relying primarily on staff judgement and training.
• Senior management and control functions should consider whether second-line compliance has sufficient independence and authority, and whether periodic internal-audit or other third-line reviews provide effective assurance and challenge.

What changed

This is supervisory guidance and a statement of FCA expectations, not a new rule or formal implementation deadline. The FCA expects firms to identify, assess, record, manage, mitigate and disclose actual, potential and perceived conflicts across the full investment lifecycle, based on the substance, scale and complexity of their UK activities rather than their formal legal structure.

Key dates

2026-04-21

Voluntary restrictions were imposed on Kingscrown Finance Ltd.

2026-09-25

Further voluntary restrictions were imposed on Kingscrown Finance Ltd, including limits on receiving payments from existing customers and an orderly wind-down requirement.

2026-10-07

Voluntary restrictions were imposed on MOMSB Ltd and Momentus Capital Ltd, including restrictions on new customers, new lending arrangements and certain payments from existing customers, together with independent AML-framework reviews.

2026-10-09

Voluntary restrictions were imposed on Grosvenor Funding Ltd and Grosvenor Funding (North West) Ltd, including restrictions on new customers, new lending arrangements and certain payments from existing customers, together with independent AML-framework reviews.

2026-10-15

Voluntary restrictions were imposed on Abbital Ltd, including specified conditions for taking on customers, entering into lending arrangements and accepting payments, together with an independent review of its AML systems and controls.

2026-10-23

The FCA announced the restrictions and reiterated its enhanced oversight of Annex 1 firms and due-diligence expectations for regulated firms dealing with them.

Suggested considerations

• Annex 1 firms should consider reviewing their business-wide AML risk assessment, customer and beneficial-owner due diligence, ongoing monitoring, suspicious-activity escalation, governance, management information, resourcing and independent-testing arrangements against the Money Laundering Regulations 2017.
• Annex 1 firms seeking registration or under FCA assessment should consider ensuring that policies and controls are tailored to their actual lending activities, customer base, delivery channels and growth plans, rather than relying on generic or group-level documentation.
• The six named firms should consider mapping their operational processes, customer communications, payment arrangements and lending activity to the precise terms of their voluntary restrictions and preserving evidence of compliance with those terms.
• FCA-authorised firms should consider identifying all Annex 1 counterparties and refreshing onboarding and periodic-review procedures to obtain direct confirmation of registration, conduct independent verification, understand the counterparty's business model and assess whether its AML controls create heightened relationship risk.
• Regulated firms should consider recording the rationale for accepting, continuing or restricting relationships with Annex 1 firms and escalating discrepancies between a firm's registered activities, actual activities, ownership, governance or AML framework.
• Groups with multiple Annex 1 entities should consider documenting entity-specific risk assessments and controls, since group-wide or off-the-shelf procedures may not demonstrate that each entity manages its own risks effectively.
• Lenders and their service providers should consider contingency arrangements for restricted firms, including payment handling, loan-book servicing, customer communications and orderly wind-down scenarios.

What changed

Kingscrown Finance Ltd is subject to restrictions limiting how it may receive payments from existing customers and requiring an orderly wind-down of its existing loan book. MOMSB Ltd, Momentus Capital Ltd, Grosvenor Funding Ltd and Grosvenor Funding (North West) Ltd are restricted from taking on new customers or entering into new lending arrangements, subject to the specified exceptions; restrictions also apply to accepting payments from existing customers, and the firms must obtain independent reviews of their AML frameworks.

Key dates

2026-10-22

FCA published CP26/37 and opened the consultation.

2027-01-22 Deadline

Deadline for consultation responses.

2027-06-30

End of the first half of 2027, during which the FCA expects to publish final regulatory requirements; the exact publication date is not specified.

Suggested considerations

• Firms should assess the consultation proposals against their current SMF population, including whether SMF18, SMF22 or the existing SMF7 definition is used and how responsibilities would be reallocated.
• Dual-regulated and Enhanced firms should review whether SMF5 and SMF10 to SMF15 appointments would move from prior approval to notification, while considering the continuing need for documented fitness and propriety assessments.
• Compliance teams may wish to model whether the proposed £200 million, £100 billion, £75 million and £750 million Enhanced thresholds would change the firm's classification, including group-level and three-year rolling-average calculations.
• Firms should plan to preserve accurate internal Statements of Responsibilities and Management Responsibilities Maps even if routine FCA submissions are removed.
• Firms should review Prescribed Responsibility allocations and identify the impact of removing nine responsibilities, including the proposed retention of A, D, Z and J-3.
• Certification-function inventories, annual certification processes, regulatory-reference procedures and Directory reporting should be mapped so that transition arrangements can be implemented if the proposals are finalised; firms should not discontinue current obligations before final rules and commencement.
• Conduct and HR teams should assess changes to training, staff notifications, disciplinary classifications, appeal processes and breach-reporting workflows, distinguishing staff subject only to Individual Conduct Rules from those also subject to Senior Manager Conduct Rules.
• Firms should retain processes for prompt notification of matters of regulatory significance under Principle 11, SUP 15 and SUP 10C, because the consultation does not remove those obligations.

What changed

The FCA proposes to make SMF5 (Head of Internal Audit) and SMF10 to SMF15 functions notified rather than subject to prior approval at specified dual-regulated and Enhanced firms. It proposes to remove SMF18 (Other Overall Responsibility) and SMF22 (Local Responsibility), narrow SMF7 (Group Entity Senior Manager), and retain SMF24 (Chief Operations Function) as a pre-approved function.

Key dates

2026-10-22

The FCA and PRA published parallel Phase 2 SM&CR consultations.

2027-01-22 Deadline

Deadline for responses to the FCA and PRA SM&CR Phase 2 consultations.

Suggested considerations

• Compliance teams may wish to review the FCA consultation CP26/37 and PRA consultation CP14/26 and consider submitting responses by 22 January 2027.
• Firms should continue operating existing SM&CR approval, certification, Directory, Conduct Rule and responsibility-mapping processes unless and until final rules and any required legislation take effect.
• Firms may wish to map current Senior Management Functions and identify Chief Actuary, Risk Committee Chair and Audit Committee Chair roles that could move from pre-approval to notification, while retaining evidence of fitness, propriety, competence and suitability assessments.
• Compliance teams should identify employees who could fall outside the proposed Certification Regime and assess how internal competence, performance, disciplinary and conduct controls would operate without annual regulatory certification.
• Firms may wish to model the effect of the proposed Enhanced-regime threshold increases on their classification, governance documentation, prescribed responsibilities and approval processes.
• Firms should review Conduct Rule breach-reporting workflows and training curricula, but should not apply a higher reporting threshold or reduced training scope until the relevant final rules are published and effective.
• Governance teams may wish to assess the proposed removal of ongoing Statements of Responsibilities and Management Responsibilities Map submissions and determine what internal records will still be needed to demonstrate clear accountability.
• Firms with cryptoasset activities or planned authorisation may wish to consider the interaction between these proposals, the FCA's modification-by-consent approach for cryptoasset firms and the wider cryptoasset perimeter work.

What changed

The regulators propose removing pre-approval for a range of functions, including Chief Actuaries and Chairs of Risk and Audit Committees, with firms instead notifying the regulators and retaining responsibility for fitness and propriety. Chief Executive, Chief Financial Officer and Chair roles would generally remain subject to regulatory pre-approval, while regulators could require pre-approval for otherwise notified roles in high-risk cases.

Key dates

2026-10-22

PRA CP14/26 was published and the Phase 2 consultation opened.

2027-01-22 Deadline

Deadline for responses to the PRA consultation.

Suggested considerations

• Compliance teams may wish to map current SMFs against the proposed pre-approved and notified categories, with particular attention to Chief Actuary, Risk Committee Chair, Audit Committee Chair and SMF7 roles.
• Firms should consider how they would evidence fitness, propriety, competence and conduct decisions if formal Certification Regime assessments, certificates and regulatory references are removed.
• Governance functions may wish to assess the proposed reduction in Prescribed Responsibilities and the future frequency of Statements of Responsibilities and Management Responsibilities Maps, while preserving clear accountability records.
• Firms may wish to review succession and contingency arrangements against the proposed 18-week temporary SMF cover period and assess whether internal approval workflows can support faster interim appointments.
• Dual-regulated firms should compare PRA CP14/26 with FCA CP26/37 and identify differences in scope, timing, forms, conduct-breach notifications and transitional arrangements.
• PRA-authorised firms may wish to prepare a consultation response addressing the proposed implementation period before the 2027 final policy.
• Firms should continue operating existing SM&CR approval, certification, fitness and propriety, regulatory-reference and notification obligations unless and until final rules and applicable legislative changes take effect.
• Compliance teams may wish to monitor the passage and commencement of the Financial Services and Markets Bill 2026 because the principal Phase 2 reforms depend on those legislative steps.

What changed

The PRA proposes to introduce a notification approach for almost half of current Senior Management Functions, including Chief Actuaries and Chairs of Risk and Audit Committees, while retaining an anticipated power to require pre-approval for an otherwise notified role in exceptional cases. Group Entity Senior Manager Function SMF7 would be divided between pre-approved and notified roles.

Key dates

2019-01-01

In 2019, Dawkins sold Vector Wealth to a director who had previously been disqualified and who subsequently described himself as the firm's CEO; the FCA found that Dawkins falsely represented that he remained in control.

2020-09-22

Kadir Kanizi was appointed as a director of Vector Wealth.

2021-01-01

The FCA's permanent restriction on marketing speculative illiquid securities, including relevant mini-bonds and loan notes, to retail investors took effect, subject to applicable high-net-worth and sophisticated-investor exemptions.

2021-09-06

The FCA approved Kadir Kanizi for his senior management role at Vector Wealth.

2025-01-28

Vector Wealth's FCA authorisation ended.

2026-10-21

The FCA published the enforcement announcement concerning Dawkins and Kanizi.

Suggested considerations

• Compliance teams may wish to review ownership, control and governance records following any acquisition or disposal, verify that the person exercising actual control is accurately disclosed to the FCA and assess whether a change-in-control notification under FSMA sections 178 to 191 was required.
• Firms should consider testing that directors, controllers and senior managers meet the applicable fit-and-proper standards and that no disqualified person is exercising management or operational control indirectly or through nominee arrangements.
• Firms that issue, approve or distribute mini-bond, loan-note or similar promotions should consider a product-level assessment of whether the instrument is a speculative illiquid security and whether the promotion is prohibited or qualifies for a valid exemption under the FCA rules.
• Financial promotion approval processes should be reviewed to ensure that risk warnings are prominent, balanced and comprehensible, and are not undermined by claims suggesting fixed returns, simplicity, safety or FCA endorsement.
• Where high-net-worth or sophisticated-investor exemptions are used, firms should consider verifying the relevant declaration and process before providing access to the promotion, rather than treating a generic self-certification as evidence that all conduct and disclosure obligations have been satisfied.
• Firms should consider documenting who reviewed the promotion, the evidence supporting the target market and exemption, the underlying use of investor funds, liquidity and default risks, and the rationale for approving the communication.
• Boards and senior managers may wish to review escalation, oversight and record-keeping arrangements for unregulated investment activity conducted alongside regulated business, particularly where the firm's FCA authorisation could give investors a misleading impression of product safety or compensation protection.
• Firms should consider confirming that senior managers understand their individual accountability for consumer communications and risk oversight, and may wish to include high-risk investment promotions in conduct monitoring and Consumer Duty assessments where relevant.

What changed

This is a final enforcement action rather than a new rule or industry-wide implementation deadline. It applies the existing prohibition in section 21 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 on unauthorised financial promotions, the FCA's financial promotion rules in COBS 4, including the restrictions applying to speculative illiquid securities, and the change-in-control notification regime under sections 178 to 191 of FSMA.

Key dates

2026-10-19

The FCA publication was issued as part of its wider AI supervisory and industry-engagement work.

Suggested considerations

• Firms should consider maintaining an inventory of AI use cases, including internally developed, embedded and outsourced tools, with a named accountable senior manager and documented risk classification for each use case.
• Compliance teams may wish to map each consumer-facing AI use case to Consumer Duty outcomes, the target market, foreseeable harms, vulnerable-customer considerations, fair value where relevant, complaints handling and available redress.
• Firms should consider documenting why AI is appropriate for the identified consumer need, which activities remain staff-led, where the system must abstain or escalate, and how those controls have been tested in practice.
• Model and risk functions may wish to test accuracy, bias, error rates, explainability, data quality, drift and robustness across relevant consumer characteristics, including vulnerability, accessibility, digital capability and financial capability.
• Firms should consider testing consumer understanding of AI disclosures and outputs with representative user groups, rather than relying solely on technical model explanations or generic disclaimers.
• Operations and technology teams may wish to implement proportionate live monitoring, clear escalation thresholds, sample-based human review, incident and near-miss processes, fallback arrangements and channel continuity where an AI system fails or produces harmful outputs.
• Firms should consider retaining auditable records of prompts, inputs, outputs, model and vendor versions, filters, approvals, overrides, escalations, complaints and remediation decisions for a period consistent with the applicable record-keeping requirements.
• Outsourcing and third-party risk assessments may wish to address concentration and dependency risks, access to testing and performance information, change control, data use, subcontracting, service continuity and the firm’s ability to challenge or replace an AI provider.

What changed

The publication consolidates the FCA’s expectations under the existing framework, including the Principles for Businesses, Threshold Conditions, SYSC, operational resilience, outsourcing and critical third-party requirements, Consumer Duty, vulnerable-customer guidance, SM&CR and DISP. It identifies good practice such as defining the consumer need and target market before deployment, testing outcomes across consumer characteristics and vulnerability scenarios, setting human escalation and abstention controls, maintaining auditable records of prompts, outputs, model versions and decisions, and...

Key dates

2025-11-07

The FCA published its multi-firm review of CFD providers’ provision of price and value, identifying concerns including narrow fair value assessments, opaque overnight funding charges and charges on matched long and short positions.

2026-05-01

The FCA surveyed 81 CFD firms about changes made or planned after the November 2025 review; the source identifies May 2026 but does not specify an exact day.

Suggested considerations

• Compliance teams may wish to document a comprehensive fair value assessment covering spreads, commissions, overnight funding, ancillary fees, cash-balance interest and all other amounts charged to consumer accounts, rather than focusing primarily on execution costs.
• Firms should consider testing whether overnight funding rates are reasonable against prevailing reference or base rates, relevant UK-regulated peers, the underlying asset class and the benefits delivered, with documented rationale for material outliers and wide long-versus-short spreads.
• Firms may wish to assess separately the treatment of matched or hedged positions, including whether applying the full funding spread to both legs is proportionate where there is no net market exposure and whether any reduced-margin or promotional arrangements encourage clients to maintain costly open positions.
• Firms should consider reviewing client-facing disclosures at each relevant stage of the journey, including onboarding, product pages, deal tickets and account interfaces, and explaining the calculation, rate, frequency, leverage effect and potential cumulative impact of overnight charges in accessible language.
• Firms may wish to present projected overnight costs using an annualised percentage measure alongside daily or monetary charges, while retaining clear explanations that actual costs may vary.
• Appropriateness and target-market processes should be reviewed for robustness, including any income thresholds, enhanced scrutiny, vulnerability monitoring and escalation arrangements introduced after the November 2025 review.
• Firms should consider whether interest paid on client cash or margin balances, and the absence of such interest, has been properly assessed as part of the overall price and value outcome.
• Management information may need to evidence the review of charges, peer comparisons, complaints, customer understanding, vulnerable-client outcomes and remediation decisions because the FCA states it will follow up individually where concerns remain.

What changed

This is supervisory guidance and good-and-poor-practice feedback, not a new binding rule or implementation deadline. The FCA expects firms to assess all costs and charges in their fair value assessments, use relevant UK-regulated peer comparisons, consider consumer outcomes rather than treating fair value as a compliance exercise, and review whether overnight funding rates are reasonable in light of prevailing base rates, peer pricing and the benefits provided.

Key dates

2025-07-09

The FPC made the recommendation to amend implementation of the high-LTI flow limit, allowing individual lenders to increase their share while seeking to keep the aggregate flow consistent with 15%.

2026-04-01

The FCA consultation on the proposed high-LTI lending guidance opened.

2026-07-01

The FCA consultation closed.

2026-10-14

FG26/11, the joint FCA/PRA policy changes and the PRA supervisory statement were issued and the replacement framework took effect.

Suggested considerations

• Firms should map their regulated mortgage book against the 4.5 LTI definition, the listed exclusions and the £150 million or 300-contract de minimis test over the relevant consecutive four-quarter periods.
• Compliance and risk teams may wish to update policies, risk-appetite statements, underwriting controls and management information to reflect removal of the individual 15% cap and continued exposure to the aggregate 15% safeguard.
• Firms considering a strategy that would increase high-LTI lending above 15% should consider notifying the FCA or, for PRA-authorised firms, engaging with the PRA in accordance with the applicable supervisory arrangements before implementation.
• Firms should validate Product Sales Data submissions and establish quarterly controls for calculating individual high-LTI flows and reconciling them to the regulator’s published aggregate-flow data.
• Firms should maintain documented stress testing, affordability assessment, portfolio monitoring and governance demonstrating that high-LTI lending is managed prudently under the PRA supervisory statement.
• Firms should establish escalation and contingency procedures enabling rapid adjustment of high-LTI origination if the FCA issues temporary supplemental LTI guidance.
• Compliance teams may wish to review whether product, broker and customer communications accurately explain that the reform concerns portfolio flow limits and does not create an entitlement for an individual borrower to obtain a mortgage above 4.5 times income.
• Firms should monitor further FCA temporary supplemental guidance and PRA quarterly publications, as the market-wide mechanism can result in firm-specific reduction expectations even where the firm’s own lending remains commercially appropriate.

What changed

FG26/11 applies the FPC recommendation to firms with permission to enter into regulated mortgage contracts as lender, subject to specified exclusions. High-LTI lending remains lending at an LTI of 4.5 or above, and the aggregate high-LTI flow remains subject to the FPC’s 15% limit; however, the previous expectation that each in-scope firm must not exceed 15% has been removed.

Key dates

2026-10-14

PRA publishes SS2/26 – High loan to income lending. The statement sets out supervisory expectations and the quarterly aggregate-monitoring framework.

Suggested considerations

• Firms should determine whether they were below the de minimis threshold in both relevant consecutive four-quarter periods, using both the £150 million total-credit and 300-contract tests.
• Mortgage risk and compliance teams may wish to validate the firm’s classification of high-LTI contracts at the 4.5-times income threshold and confirm that excluded products are correctly removed from internal and regulatory monitoring.
• Boards and senior management may wish to approve explicit high-LTI risk appetite limits and management information covering current flow, forecast flow, concentrations, high-risk segments, arrears and performance outcomes.
• Firms considering a strategy that would increase high-LTI flow above 15% should prepare evidence of the supporting risk-management changes and discuss them through regular PRA supervisory engagement.
• Firms above the de minimis threshold should establish controls to reconcile internal high-LTI flow data with FCA Product Sales Data and the PRA’s quarterly aggregate publication, including a process for handling revised data.
• Mortgage lenders should maintain credible scenario plans for reducing future high-LTI originations, including underwriting, product, pricing, distribution and pipeline controls, while distinguishing future lending decisions from existing approved offers.
• Groups should document whether high-LTI governance and monitoring are operated at individual-firm or group level and ensure that group-level calculations include only relevant firms above the de minimis threshold.
• Compliance teams may wish to monitor future PRA and FCA announcements for any fractional reduction rate, implementation timetable or withdrawal of adjustment expectations, since SS2/26 does not prescribe a permanent reduction rate in advance.

What changed

SS2/26 defines high-LTI lending as regulated mortgage contracts where credit is at least 4.5 times the relevant individual or joint income. It applies to firms within the Housing Part of the PRA Rulebook, including relevant UK subsidiaries, and requires high-LTI lending to be conducted prudently under an appropriate risk-management and compensating-controls framework.

Key dates

2026-10-28 Deadline

The PRA amendments to the Housing Part of the PRA Rulebook and SS2/26 commence; the FCA replacement general guidance also comes into effect and prior FCA high-LTI guidance is replaced.

Suggested considerations

• Firms should assess whether their high-LTI risk appetite, lending plans and business model support individual high-LTI flows above 15% from 28 October 2026.
• Firms should review and, where necessary, update board-approved policies, risk appetite statements, underwriting controls, affordability assessments, portfolio limits, stress testing and management information for high-LTI lending.
• Compliance teams may wish to map existing controls and reporting to the rolling four-quarter calculation for individual flows and distinguish this from the regulators’ single-quarter aggregate monitoring measure.
• Firms should establish a process to monitor the PRA’s quarterly aggregate high-LTI publication and the FCA’s notifications regarding expected adjustments, including escalation to senior management and the board where a reduction in lending may be required.
• Firms intending to operate above 15% should consider whether they can reduce high-LTI lending smoothly and predictably towards 15% if requested, including identifying practical management actions and avoiding abrupt changes to customer or intermediary pipelines.
• Firms should confirm that further advances and retirement interest-only mortgage contracts are correctly excluded from the relevant flow calculations and that other mortgage products are classified consistently with the final rules and guidance.
• Firms using the interim PRA modification by consent or FCA individual guidance should confirm that the relevant interim directions will fall away automatically on 28 October 2026 and align systems and procedures with the final framework.
• Senior managers and boards should document oversight of high-LTI strategy, risk appetite changes, portfolio performance, concentration risk and the potential effect of aggregate market developments on future lending.

What changed

The PRA will amend the Housing Part of the PRA Rulebook and the FCA will replace FG14/8, FG17/2 and FG25/4 with new general guidance. High-LTI lending remains lending at an LTI ratio of 4.5 times income or above, with the aggregate market limit remaining 15%; the individual firm-level 15% cap is removed. Individual firm high-LTI flows and any expected reductions will be assessed on a rolling four-quarter basis, while the regulators will monitor aggregate high-LTI flow using a single-calendar-quarter measure.

Key dates

2026-03-30

The FCA published PS26/3, establishing the motor finance consumer redress scheme for relevant agreements entered into from 6 April 2007 to 1 November 2024.

2026-05-31

The FCA's general pause on handling certain motor finance complaints ended; complaints outside the scheme scope generally reverted to the applicable ordinary complaint-handling framework from 1 June 2026.

2026-06-30

The implementation period for Scheme 2, covering agreements entered into from 1 April 2014 to 1 November 2024, was scheduled to end.

2026-08-31

The implementation period for Scheme 1, covering agreements entered into from 6 April 2007 to 31 March 2014, was scheduled to end.

2027-02-16

The Upper Tribunal hearing of the legal challenges to the motor finance compensation scheme is scheduled to begin.

2027-02-26

The scheduled window for the Upper Tribunal hearing of the legal challenges is due to conclude.

Suggested considerations

• Compliance teams may wish to maintain a documented inventory of complaints, agreements, commission data, consumer communications and redress calculations so that scheme preparation can resume promptly if the legal challenges fail.
• Lenders should continue complying with all motor finance scheme rules that have not been suspended, including required notifications to consumers who are not owed compensation.
• Firms should model both principal outcomes: implementation of the scheme after judgment and resumption of ordinary complaint handling if the scheme or relevant provisions are quashed.
• Operational planning may include capacity, case-management systems, data remediation, quality assurance, customer communications and escalation procedures for the ordinary DISP complaint process.
• Finance, risk and compliance teams should consider scenario-based provisions for scheme redress, litigation-related costs and ordinary complaint liabilities, and should engage auditors regarding assumptions, evidence and disclosure.
• Firms should review whether complaints outside the scheme scope are being handled under the ordinary DISP time limits, rather than being treated as covered by the suspended scheme arrangements.
• Senior management may wish to monitor the tribunal proceedings, FCA firm updates and any subsequent judgment, appeal or amendments to CONRED and DISP requirements.
• Firms should consider customer-outcome and conduct risks arising from delayed compensation, incomplete communications, duplicated claims-management fees and inconsistent treatment of consumers during the suspension.

What changed

The Upper Tribunal hearing window is now confirmed for 16 to 26 February 2027. The scheme remains partially suspended, so lenders are not required to calculate or pay compensation under the scheme until the legal process concludes, but the suspension does not remove the requirement to comply with unaffected scheme rules, including sending specified communications to consumers who are not owed compensation. The FCA has expressly warned lenders to prepare for the possibility that the scheme, or parts of it, are quashed and that there is consequently no scheme-based complaint-handling pause.

Suggested considerations

• Firms should consider conducting a documented effectiveness review of governance arrangements, covering board composition and capability, challenge and decisions, delegation and escalation, management information, conflicts and assurance.
• Boards and management bodies may wish to map collective capability against the administrator's current and emerging risks, including technology, cyber resilience, data management, innovation, methodology, market structure and user needs.
• Compliance teams may wish to test whether board and committee records capture principal challenge, decision rationale, actions, ownership and follow-through, including significant decisions taken between scheduled meetings.
• Firms should consider documenting ownership of key risks, decision rights, escalation routes and the way UK-regulated entity obligations are represented in group governance arrangements.
• Administrators may wish to review whether group reporting and escalation channels remain effective if individuals with multiple roles are unavailable, conflicted or subject to competing priorities.
• Firms should consider whether conflicts frameworks address multiple roles, group relationships, commercial pressures, competing priorities and differing stakeholder interests, and whether identified conflicts, mitigations and decisions are recorded.
• Board reporting owners may wish to distinguish information provided for awareness from matters requiring discussion, decision or escalation, and highlight changes, exceptions, emerging trends, risk movements, mitigation effectiveness and overdue actions.
• Administrators should consider whether between-meeting escalation arrangements provide directors with timely information on significant developments without disconnecting those decisions from formal governance records.

What changed

The FCA has not amended rules, introduced new thresholds or imposed a compliance deadline. Instead, it has set out supervisory observations that benchmark administrators should assess against their own activities, risks, users and operating environments. The FCA will use these observations in supervisory engagement alongside developments in the benchmarks framework.

Key dates

2026-09-30

The FCA published GC26/6 and PS26/19; the consultation on the proposed Knowledge Base changes opened.

2026-10-28 Deadline

Deadline for comments on the proposed Technical Note 803.1, amendments to TN 801.4 and deletion of TN 802.3.

2027-01-01

The new UK SRS sustainability disclosure rules apply to accounting periods beginning on or after this date.

2029-01-01

The transitional reliefs for Scope 3 and UK SRS S1 disclosures are expected to fall away for accounting periods beginning on or after this date.

Suggested considerations

• Compliance teams may wish to review the proposed TN 803.1 and assess whether current annual-report processes can produce sufficiently specific explanations for each UK SRS disclosure that is omitted or only partially provided.
• Issuers should consider mapping existing TCFD disclosures, sustainability reporting and climate metrics against UK SRS S1 and UK SRS S2, identifying gaps in governance, strategy, risk management, metrics and targets.
• Issuers should consider establishing ownership, evidence trails and internal controls for Scope 3 data, transition-plan disclosures and explanations of non-compliance, including procedures for board or audit committee review.
• Listed companies may wish to assess whether they have published a climate-related transition plan and prepare the required statement on its existence and location, or the reasons why no plan has been published.
• Issuers should consider confirming whether third-party sustainability assurance has been obtained and how that status will be described in the annual financial report.
• Compliance teams may wish to plan for the transitional relief timetable, including the one-year Scope 3 deferral and two-year deferral for UK SRS S1 disclosures, while avoiding reliance on reliefs that will no longer be available for accounting periods beginning on or after 1 January 2029.
• Interested parties should consider submitting comments on the proposed Knowledge Base changes to the FCA by 28 October 2026.
• Legal, reporting and investor-relations teams may wish to monitor the final version of TN 803.1 before the new rules apply and update disclosure templates, reporting calendars and controls accordingly.

What changed

The FCA proposes to add Primary Market/TN/803.1, “UK SRS sustainability disclosures for listed companies”, explaining the expected level of detail where an issuer complies with, or explains non-compliance with, UK SRS requirements. It proposes consequential amendments to Primary Market/TN/801.4, “Disclosures in relation to sustainability matters, including climate change”, and deletion of Primary Market/TN/802.3, “TCFD aligned climate-related disclosure requirements for listed companies”.

Key dates

2026-01-19

The Public Offers and Admissions to Trading Regulations 2024 regime came into effect; PMB 66 finalises related Knowledge Base guidance.

2026-09-01

Revised FRC Third Country Auditor directions took effect, temporarily permitting certain qualifying Stock Connect audits of Chinese-registered entities to use Chinese Standards on Auditing.

2026-09-30

The FCA published Primary Market Bulletin No. 66 and finalised Technical Notes 619.3 and 321.5.

2026-10-28

Deadline for comments on proposed Technical Notes 803.1 and 801.5 and proposed deletion of Technical Note 802.3.

2027-01-01

UK Sustainability Reporting Standards-based UK Listing Rules requirements apply to accounting periods beginning on or after this date; Scope 3 and non-climate S1 transitional deferrals may apply.

2027-03-18

FCA operational incident and third-party reporting rules in PS26/2 come into force.

2028-01-01

The FCA expects the first reporting cycle affected by the new sustainability disclosure framework to occur in 2028, depending on the issuer's financial year.

Suggested considerations

• Issuers and advisers should reassess prospectus working capital models to determine whether each uncommitted facility can reasonably be treated as available for the entire working capital period, including under the reasonable worst-case scenario.
• Where uncommitted facilities are relied upon, firms should document the directors' assessment, the assumptions and the accompanying prospectus disclosure required by Guidelines 33.1 and 33.2 of Technical Note 619.3.
• Firms should test all risk factors, liquidity disclosures and business-plan assumptions for consistency with a clean working capital statement and consider a qualified statement where the prospectus describes risks fundamentally inconsistent with clean working capital.
• Sponsors, reporting accountants and legal advisers should update working capital checklists, verification procedures, prospectus precedents and review controls for Technical Notes 619.3 and 321.5.
• Listed companies should prepare for UK Sustainability Reporting Standards and the UK Listing Rules changes applying to accounting periods beginning on or after 2027-01-01 by identifying material sustainability risks and opportunities, reviewing governance and controls, and planning for the Scope 3 and non-climate S1 transitional deferrals.
• Issuers should maintain a documented, case-by-case process for assessing whether a cyber incident or vulnerability is inside information under Article 7 UK MAR, whether disclosure is required under Article 17(1), and whether delay under Article 17(4) remains justified and confidential.
• Firms should monitor cyber incidents after initial containment for new inside information concerning operational impact, duration, remediation costs, protection costs, reputational effects or changes to financial outlook, and should document information-sharing with authorities under Articles 10 and 17(8) UK MAR.
• Relevant firms should familiarise themselves with the operational incident and third-party reporting framework in PS26/2 ahead of its 2027-03-18 commencement.

What changed

Technical Note 619.3 now permits an issuer to take financing under certain uncommitted facilities into account when assessing working capital for the entire working capital period, where the directors judge that the facilities can be considered available throughout that period. A clean working capital statement may then be issued, provided the prospectus includes appropriate disclosure alongside the statement, including the relevant basis-of-preparation information and the fact that uncommitted facilities were taken into account.

Key dates

2026-06-30

The FCA opened consultation on the proposed CRYPTOPRU 7 guidance.

2026-07-30

Consultation on the proposed guidance closed.

2026-09-30

The FCA finalised and published FG26/10.

2027-10-25 Deadline

FG26/10 comes into force alongside the FCA's new UK cryptoasset regime.

Suggested considerations

• Firms should map their current CRYPTOPRU 7 overall risk assessment against FG26/10, documenting any gaps in risk identification, stress testing, financial-resource calculations, recovery planning and wind-down analysis.
• Compliance and prudential teams may wish to confirm that the own-funds requirement is calculated as the highest of the permanent minimum requirement, fixed overheads requirement and K-factor requirement, and that the own-funds threshold requirement is not below that amount.
• Firms should consider developing severe-but-plausible scenarios that combine cryptoasset price declines, customer withdrawal surges, counterparty or exchange failure, cyber incidents, private-key compromise, reduced market liquidity, stablecoin de-pegging and infrastructure outages.
• Firms should assess whether collateral, committed facilities, group support, banking arrangements, custody structures and other mitigants are legally, operationally and practically available under stress, rather than relying solely on their accounting treatment.
• Firms should prepare or refresh a stressed 90-day cash-flow forecast covering peak and cumulative liquidity needs, including margin calls, settlement failures, client drawdowns, pre-funding requirements and delayed or unavailable funding.
• Firms should assess their funding profile over the following 12 months, including renewal and rollover risk, withdrawal of facilities, reduced group funding and increased funding costs.
• Firms should establish a contingency funding plan with quantitative internal triggers above regulatory thresholds, credible actions within management control, implementation timelines, impediments and communication arrangements.
• Firms should distinguish recovery actions that management can execute directly from actions dependent on shareholders, banks, counterparties, group entities or buyers, and should consider whether limited recovery capacity requires earlier wind-down triggers.

What changed

FG26/10 does not create a new standalone binding rule or prescribe a single methodology; it explains how firms should evidence compliance with the binding requirements in CRYPTOPRU 7 and should be applied proportionately to the firm's nature, scale and complexity. Firms should begin with their business model, strategy and risk appetite, identify market, leverage, credit, liquidity, operational and concentration risks, assess interactions between those risks, and evaluate whether mitigants remain effective under stress.

Key dates

2026-06-30

FCA consultation on GC26/4 opened.

2026-07-30

FCA consultation on GC26/4 closed.

2026-09-30

FCA published finalised guidance FG26/9.

2027-10-25

FG26/9 comes into force as non-Handbook guidance on COREPRU 7.

Suggested considerations

• Firms should map all regulated and unregulated activities, group dependencies and outsourced services into an inventory of risks capable of causing material harm to clients or the market.
• Compliance and prudential teams may wish to document a clear chain from business model and risk appetite through material risks, controls, stress scenarios, OFTR, LATR, early-warning indicators and management actions.
• Firms should assess own funds and liquid assets separately for ongoing operations and wind-down, test the timing of cash inflows and outflows, and evidence that thresholds meet the applicable OFR, BLAR and sectoral minimums.
• Firms should consider whether their business plan, normally covering approximately three years, has been stress tested against sufficiently severe but plausible firm-specific, market-wide and concurrent scenarios, including reverse stress testing to failure.
• Firms should review whether wind-down plans specify triggers, execution steps, timing, costs, cashflow sequencing and resource needs under stressed conditions.
• Firms should establish governance, independent challenge, version control and documentation standards that preserve the rationale, assumptions, evidence and judgments supporting the ORA.
• Firms may wish to schedule implementation work ahead of 25 October 2027, notwithstanding that the underlying COREPRU 7 obligations already apply and the guidance is non-Handbook.
• Firms should plan an annual ORA review, additional reviews following material business-model or operating-model changes, and retention of the approved ORA for at least three years.

What changed

FG26/9 provides an integrated framework for complying with COREPRU 7.2.1R and the overall financial adequacy rule, covering all regulated and unregulated activities, group and outsourcing dependencies, material-harm risks, risk appetite, systems and controls, the own funds threshold requirement (OFTR), the liquid asset threshold requirement (LATR), stress and reverse stress testing, and wind-down planning.

Key dates

2026-09-30

FCA published PS26/19 and the final UK Listing Rules (Sustainability Reporting Standards Disclosure) Instrument 2026.

2026-10-28 Deadline

Deadline for responses to the FCA consultation on the proposed Technical Note supporting proportionate application of the comply-or-explain approach.

2027-01-01 Deadline

The final rules and UKLR TP 16 transitional provisions commence; they apply to accounting periods beginning on or after this date.

2028-01-01

First reporting year expected for issuers whose accounting periods begin on or after 1 January 2027, subject to the applicable accounting year-end and transitional reliefs.

2029-01-01 Deadline

For accounting periods beginning on or after this date, the Scope 3 and wider S1 climate-first transitional reliefs have expired and the full UK SRS comply-or-explain framework applies.

Suggested considerations

• Listed issuers should map their listing category to the applicable rules in UKLR 6.6, 14.3, 15.3, 16.3 or 22.2 and confirm whether any investment entity, shell-company or other exclusion applies.
• Compliance and reporting teams should perform a gap assessment against UK SRS S1 and UK SRS S2, including governance, strategy, risk management, metrics and targets, greenhouse-gas emissions and material sustainability-related risks and opportunities.
• Issuers should establish a documented comply-or-explain process capable of identifying each omitted or partial disclosure, the reason for the omission and the remediation steps planned.
• Finance and sustainability teams should plan for the one-year Scope 3 relief and the two-year S1 climate-first relief, including the required statement that the relevant UKLR and UK SRS transitional provisions are being used.
• Issuers should assess whether UK SRS disclosures can be incorporated by cross-reference under UK SRS S1 Appendix B paragraphs B45 to B47 and ensure referenced documents are accessible and consistently controlled.
• Governance teams should decide whether third-party assurance will be obtained and prepare the required assurance-provider, scope, level, standards and accessibility disclosures where assurance is used.
• Issuers should document their position on climate-related transition plans and prepare the required location statement or explanation for non-publication.
• Reporting teams should plan comparative information: no comparative information is required for the first period in which full or partial UK SRS disclosures are made, but comparatives are required from the immediately following accounting period.

What changed

The rules amend the FCA Handbook, including UKLR 6.6, 14.3, 15.3, 16.3 and 22.2, and ESG 2.2.6R. They require in-scope issuers to include UK SRS S2 climate-related disclosures and UK SRS S1 sustainability-related disclosures in their annual financial reports, or provide specified explanations where disclosures are absent or incomplete. Those explanations must identify the requirements or risks and opportunities not covered, explain why, and describe steps being taken or planned to enable future disclosure.

Key dates

2023-01-01

The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 received Royal Assent during 2023; its voluntary information-sharing provisions are identified by the FCA as a potential mechanism for firms to share information concerning economic crime. The specific commencement date for any relevant provision should be verified against the applicable commencement instruments.

2025-01-01

Cifas introduced a dedicated funds received for money muling filing category and revised filing criteria and guidance, making 2025 filing data not directly comparable with 2023 and 2024. The date is stated as January 2025 rather than a specific day.

2026-09-23

The FCA published its multi-firm review on money-mule activity and cashing out findings.

Suggested considerations

• Firms should consider refreshing their business-wide and customer-risk assessments to reflect mule-chain activity, including the concentration of cashing out between the second and fifth accounts and the higher concentration at the second account.
• Compliance and fraud teams may wish to test whether transaction-monitoring scenarios identify linked accounts, repeated use of accounts across fraud types, rapid onward transfers, fragmented card spending, international destinations and higher-value crypto-related cash-outs.
• Firms should consider reviewing controls across the full payment chain rather than focusing only on the first account receiving suspected fraud proceeds, including internal account link analysis and escalation between fraud, AML and investigations teams.
• Banks, payment institutions and EMIs may wish to compare detection and response performance by account tenure, customer type and channel, noting that 74.1% of EMI closures and 56.9% of PI closures in the survey occurred within six months of account opening.
• Firms should consider assessing whether their use of the National Fraud Database is effective and whether suspected cases meet the applicable Cifas evidential and category criteria; the FCA data should not be interpreted as requiring Cifas filings to equal account closures.
• Firms should consider whether the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 information-sharing provisions can lawfully support prevention, detection or investigation of linked mule activity, with appropriate governance, records and data-protection controls.
• MLROs and nominated officers may wish to prepare for the further FCA and National Economic Crime Centre alert and retain evidence showing how the review findings were considered and, where appropriate, incorporated into control enhancements.

What changed

The FCA has provided new supervisory findings on the scale, profile and mechanics of money-mule activity based on a survey of 35 firms and analysis by a 22-firm public-private cell covering 140 cases across seven fraud types. It expects firms to use the findings in their own money-mule risk assessments and to review and strengthen controls for detecting, preventing and disrupting mule activity.

Key dates

2026-09-17

The FCA published its findings on payments firms delivering good outcomes for consumers in vulnerable circumstances.

Suggested considerations

• Compliance teams may wish to map the four vulnerability drivers in FG21/1 against the firm’s customer base, products, channels and transaction journeys, including digital-only and automated interactions.
• Firms should consider testing whether vulnerability identification, recording, flagging and information-sharing operate consistently in practice through call listening, complaints analysis, quality assurance, customer research and sample-based file reviews.
• Firms may wish to document how identified needs translate into specific support, such as alternative channels, assisted onboarding, additional time, accessible communications, language support or human intervention, and how those interventions produce good outcomes.
• Management information may need to cover the prevalence and characteristics of vulnerability, support provided, customer outcomes, complaints, failed or delayed payments, access barriers, vulnerable-customer journey performance and trends over time; smaller firms may use proportionate qualitative evidence but should still demonstrate effective oversight.
• Boards and senior management may wish to receive sufficiently frequent reporting to challenge whether arrangements are working, investigate root causes and track whether remedial actions improve outcomes rather than relying solely on annual Consumer Duty reporting or isolated case studies.
• Firms using intermediaries should consider how they assess the intermediary’s identification, training, support, communications, recording and outcomes-monitoring arrangements, and how issues are escalated and remediated.
• When collecting or sharing vulnerability information, firms should consider compliance with UK GDPR, the Data Protection Act 2018 and applicable confidentiality and data-minimisation requirements.
• Smaller firms may wish to record why their systems, controls and management information are proportionate to their business model, customer base and potential harm, while retaining evidence that individual circumstances can be addressed flexibly.

What changed

No new binding requirements or prescribed operating model were introduced. The FCA has nevertheless clarified the evidence it expects firms to maintain under the existing Consumer Duty and its vulnerable-customer guidance, including an understanding of the four vulnerability drivers—health, life events, financial resilience and financial capability—identification and recording across customer journeys, appropriate support and communications, outcome-focused management information, senior-management or board oversight, testing and assurance, intermediary oversight, and continuous improvement.

Key dates

2026-09-16

The FCA published PS26/18 and its final cryptoasset perimeter guidance.

2026-09-30

The application window opened for firms seeking to use the transitional arrangements.

2027-02-28 Deadline

The application window closes for firms wishing to use the transitional arrangements.

2027-10-25

The Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Cryptoassets) Regulations 2026 introduce the new regulated cryptoasset activities into the FCA perimeter.

Suggested considerations

• Firms should map each current and planned cryptoasset service against the PERG 18 regulated-activity analysis, including whether the activity is conducted in the UK and by way of business.
• Firms registered under the Money Laundering Regulations should assess separately whether FCA authorisation or a variation of permission is required, because existing registration does not convert automatically into authorisation.
• Existing FCA-authorised firms should review their permissions and consider whether a variation of permission will be needed for cryptoasset activities.
• Firms intending to rely on transitional or savings arrangements should assess eligibility and submit an application within the 30 September 2026 to 28 February 2027 application window.
• Compliance teams may wish to inventory custodial wallets, trading venues, brokerage and arranging models, staking services, stablecoin issuance, lending products, market-making and technology or infrastructure services.
• Firms should review UK territoriality, customer location, solicitation, marketing and operating-model assumptions, particularly for overseas businesses serving UK consumers.
• Firms should monitor the FCA's further consultation on amendments to the perimeter guidance and reassess their analysis when the underlying regulations and final amended guidance change.
• Applicants should prepare governance, business-model, financial, operational, safeguarding, systems and controls material expected for authorisation and may wish to obtain independent legal and compliance advice.

What changed

The FCA has finalised new PERG 18 guidance on determining whether a cryptoasset activity is regulated, whether it is carried on in the UK, whether it is carried on by way of business, and whether an exemption or transitional provision applies. The perimeter covers activities such as issuing qualifying stablecoins, operating cryptoasset trading platforms, dealing in or arranging deals in cryptoassets, safeguarding cryptoassets and arranging cryptoasset staking.

Key dates

2016-01-01

The period began during which the FCA found that the investor-visa scheme operated; the exact start date is not specified in the publication.

2019-01-01

The period ended during which the FCA found that the scheme operated; the exact end date is not specified in the publication.

2021-03-12

The FCA imposed restrictions preventing Dolfin from carrying on regulated activities, following concerns including its operation of the investor-visa funding scheme.

2021-06-01

Dolfin entered special administration; the exact date in June is not specified in the publication.

2022-02-17

The Home Office closed the Tier 1 investor visa route of entry to the UK.

2026-08-26

The FCA published the enforcement announcement concerning the bans, fines and Joukovski Decision Notice.

Suggested considerations

• Compliance teams may wish to review whether any product or client arrangement could create a misleading impression that a regulatory, immigration or other statutory investment threshold has been met when the client’s own qualifying capital is materially lower.
• Firms should consider testing the end-to-end governance of immigration-linked investment business, including approval of the business model, ownership and control disclosures, conflicts management, introducer due diligence, fee flows and oversight of connected or offshore entities.
• Firms may wish to reassess source-of-funds and source-of-wealth controls where client investments are supported by loans, circular funding, guarantees or funds provided by affiliated entities, and document why the resulting structure is consistent with the relevant immigration and financial-services requirements.
• Senior managers and boards should consider whether regulatory submissions, notifications and attestations fully disclose shadow directorships, controllers, beneficial ownership, related-party involvement and the true commercial purpose of client arrangements.
• Firms should consider conducting targeted reviews of historical investor-visa or residence-by-investment clients, including communications and files supplied to regulators or other public authorities, and escalating any potentially misleading statement or omission through the appropriate remediation and notification processes.
• Training and surveillance may be reviewed to ensure staff understand that conduct outside the core regulated service, including assistance with immigration-rule circumvention, can affect the firm’s and individuals’ integrity, fitness and propriety.
• Where third-party immigration agents or introducers are used, firms may wish to assess their incentives, remuneration, representations to clients, due-diligence records and ongoing monitoring, particularly where fees are unusually high or linked to visa approval.

What changed

This is a final enforcement outcome for Nagy and Maraj, not a new generally applicable rule or supervisory requirement. Both were prohibited from performing any function in relation to regulated activities; Nagy’s discounted penalty was £324,800, compared with an undiscounted £464,000, and Maraj’s discounted penalty was £122,000, compared with an undiscounted £174,300. Joukovski was issued a Decision Notice proposing a prohibition order, but the proposed action has no effect pending the Upper Tribunal’s determination.

Key dates

2018-05-01

Demetrios Hadjigeorgiou became CEO of SVS Securities Plc.

2019-08-02

The FCA required SVS to cease regulated activities, safeguard assets and notify affected third parties.

2019-08-05

SVS Securities Plc entered special administration.

2023-08-10

SVS Securities Plc was dissolved.

2024-04-25

The FCA issued its initial Decision Notice proposing an £84,600 penalty and prohibition order against Mr Hadjigeorgiou.

2026-08-19

The FCA published the settled enforcement outcome: a £56,400 fine and prohibition from senior management positions in financial services.

Suggested considerations

• Compliance teams may wish to review whether senior managers have documented challenge and escalation responsibilities for investments involving issuer payments, commissions, related parties or other conflicts of interest.
• Firms should consider testing whether investment due diligence appropriately assesses product risk, liquidity, valuation methodology, concentration and suitability for pension and retail customers.
• Firms should consider reconciling all fees, commissions, retained spreads and exit-value adjustments against customer disclosures, ensuring that any reduction in redemption or sale value is prominent, timely and understandable.
• Boards and senior managers may wish to evidence periodic review of model portfolios against customers’ stated objectives, risk appetite, liquidity needs and pension-transfer circumstances.
• Compliance teams may wish to assess whether management information would have identified customer detriment, unusually high issuer-related income or investment decisions that prioritised firm revenue over customer interests.
• Firms should consider retaining clear records showing how conflicts were identified, mitigated, disclosed and challenged, including the rationale for approving high-risk or illiquid products for retail and pension-related portfolios.
• Authorised firms may wish to review the FCA’s SVS enforcement materials alongside their own senior-manager accountability maps and Statements of Responsibilities, while recognising that this case does not itself create a new universal obligation.

What changed

This is a concluded enforcement action against an individual, not a new general rule or threshold applicable to firms. The FCA imposed a financial penalty under section 66 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 and a prohibition order under section 56 of that Act, following settlement and withdrawal of the Upper Tribunal referral. The FCA found a breach of Statement of Principle 6, requiring an approved person to exercise due skill, care and diligence in managing the business of the firm.

Key dates

2020-11-13

The High Court disqualified Howard Roland Duckett from acting as a company director for 10 years under section 6 of the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986.

2020-12-04

The 10-year company-director disqualification took effect and is stated to run until 2030-12-04.

2025-11-20

The FCA identified this date in consumer communications as the point after which payments requested by Beauforce should be reported; the firm was restricted from regulated activities and ordered to stop accepting consumer money.

2026-08-18

The FCA announced the prohibition of Howard Roland Duckett from performing functions in relation to regulated activities.

Suggested considerations

• Compliance teams may wish to review fitness-and-propriety checks for current and prospective senior managers, including searches for director disqualifications, litigation findings, insolvency events, and other adverse information.
• Firms should consider confirming that senior managers have disclosed all matters relevant to their approval and that changes affecting their fitness, propriety, or ability to perform an SMF are escalated and notified to the FCA where required.
• Firms should consider testing compliance with FCA Principle 11, COCON 2.2.4R, and SUP 10C.14.18R in relation to open, cooperative, and timely dealings with the FCA and notification of disqualifications or other relevant changes.
• Boards and compliance functions may wish to assess whether regulatory records, management-accountability maps, company-director registers, and evidence supporting senior-manager attestations are complete, consistent, and independently verifiable.
• Consumer-credit firms should consider reviewing controls over debt-management client payments, client-money safeguarding, communications, and contingency arrangements for transferring customers if permissions are restricted or withdrawn.
• Firms should consider screening current staff and approved persons against the FCA Financial Services Register and relevant Companies House director-disqualification information before appointment and periodically thereafter.
• Compliance teams may wish to use the case in senior-manager and conduct-risk training to reinforce that misleading the FCA or relying on fabricated information can independently support prohibition, even where the underlying misconduct occurred at an unrelated company.

What changed

The FCA made an individual prohibition order under section 56 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 and withdrew Duckett’s approval to perform the SMF3 Executive Director and SMF16 Compliance Oversight functions under section 63 of that Act. This is an enforcement outcome against a specific individual rather than a new generally applicable rule. The underlying conduct included inadequate company records, repeated lies and reliance on fabricated evidence in High Court proceedings, and failure to notify the FCA of a director disqualification.

Suggested considerations

• Compliance teams may wish to review application of Individual Conduct Rule 1 (Integrity) and related training for senior managers and certified staff, using this case as a concrete example of prohibited behaviours such as falsification of documents and misleading regulators during transaction processes.
• Firms should consider revisiting governance and controls around change-in-control, acquisition and due diligence processes, ensuring that any representations to counterparties, the FCA or the PRA about ownership of assets, funding sources or balance sheet strength are independently verified and properly documented.
• Senior Managers and Certification Regime (SMCR) frameworks may need to be assessed to confirm that integrity risks are captured within fit-and-proper assessments under FIT, including checks on honesty in communications with regulators and counterparties and escalation processes where concerns arise.
• Legal and compliance functions may wish to review internal investigation procedures, including how interviews are conducted and recorded, to ensure that employees understand the expectation of candour and the potential regulatory consequences of providing false or misleading statements during internal investigations.
• Boards and risk committees at FCA-authorised firms should consider whether their culture and conduct risk programmes sufficiently stress the expectation of honesty in all regulatory engagement, and whether additional monitoring or attestations from senior executives involved in M&A or capital-raising transactions are warranted.
• HR and compliance teams may wish to update disciplinary and regulatory notification policies to reflect that dishonesty in external deal negotiations or in internal investigations can trigger regulatory reporting obligations and potential fitness and propriety concerns.
• Firms involved in potential acquisitions of regulated entities should consider implementing pre-clearance and compliance review steps for all documentation and representations provided to target firms, regulators, and advisers, focusing on verification of asset ownership and financial claims.
• Compliance monitoring plans may be enhanced to include thematic reviews of communications with regulators and key counterparties in high-risk transactions, assessing whether there is adequate oversight and evidence of accuracy and integrity.

What changed

This publication does not introduce new rules but illustrates the FCA’s application of existing powers under section 66 FSMA 2000 (financial penalties for misconduct) and section 56 FSMA 2000 (prohibition orders) to serious integrity breaches by senior managers. It reinforces the practical interpretation of Individual Conduct Rule 1 (Integrity) in the Conduct Rules sourcebook (COCON), showing that dishonest statements and falsified documents directed at counterparties and regulators in the context of acquisitions are treated as egregious misconduct.

Key dates

2026-12-31 Deadline

AST critical recommendations expected to be implemented, including same-day trade allocation/confirmation and adoption of the FMSB SSI standard

2027-10-11 Deadline

UK T+1 securities settlement cycle begins; transferables securities traded on a UK venue and settled on a UK CSD are expected to settle on T+1 basis

Suggested considerations

• Review whether the firm has completed a T+1 project plan, secured budget and governance, and mapped all required system and process changes.
• Check that trade allocation and confirmation processes can operate by end of trade date, or identify remediation needed to reach that standard.
• Confirm adoption of the FMSB standard for sharing standard settlement instructions and align client outreach to ensure clients use the same standard where relevant.
• Assess whether current settlement performance can be measured clearly, including failure rates and root causes, and whether management information is sufficient to track progress.
• Validate dependencies on custodians, counterparties, clients and third-party providers, and obtain their implementation timelines and testing plans.
• Prepare testing strategy and evidence for testing readiness, including alignment with the UK/EU joint testing plan.
• Consider whether the firm’s fund settlement cycle should move to T+2 before 11 October 2027 to reduce cycle mismatch risk.
• Increase automation where manual processes remain material, particularly in matching, confirmation and settlement instruction workflows.

What changed

This is not a new rule notice, but it is a supervisory signal about expectations for the 11 October 2027 T+1 transition. The FCA expects firms to have completed T+1 project planning, secured budget and governance, and be well into implementation, with system and process changes underway and testing plans finalised by the time the market moves closer to 2027. The FCA highlighted specific implementation priorities drawn from the Accelerated Settlement Taskforce framework, including allocating and confirming trades by the end of trade date, adopting the Financial Markets Standards Board...

Key dates

20 March 2026

- The FCA published the statement announcing increased scrutiny of Annex 1 firms and warning that registration applications should be expected to take longer

TBD (ongoing, from the date of publication)

- Annex 1 firms that are not registered should submit a registration application before continuing Annex 1 activity, because the FCA states such firms need to be registered for AML purposes

TBD (ongoing supervisory cycle)

- Around 900 Annex 1 firms are subject to FCA information requests to support supervisory risk assessment and intelligence gathering

Suggested considerations

• Confirm whether any UK business line falls within Annex 1 scope and, if so, verify that the entity is registered with the FCA for AML purposes before continuing the activity.
• Submit a registration application immediately if the firm carries on Annex 1 activity without being registered.
• Reassess the firm’s AML framework at entity level, rather than relying on group-level policies or parent-company controls, and document why the controls are appropriate for the firm’s own risks and operations.
• Replace any generic or off-the-shelf procedures with policies, controls, and procedures tailored to the firm’s actual products, customers, geographies, and delivery model.
• Prepare evidence of MLR compliance for FCA review, including risk assessment logic, governance arrangements, customer due diligence processes, and monitoring controls.

What changed

• - The FCA is closely scrutinising applications to register as an Annex 1 firm, indicating a tougher gateway for new registrations and potentially more refusals or delay where evidence is weak.
• Annex 1 firms must demonstrate compliance with the Money Laundering Regulations, rather than merely assert that controls exist.
• The FCA is warning firms that registration applications will take longer, which affects launch plans, transaction timing, and group structuring decisions.
• The FCA has sent an information request to around 900 Annex 1 firms to better understand their activities, business models, and risks.
• The FCA says it will use this information, together with other intelligence, to identify and disrupt financial crime risks in the sector.

Key dates

TBD

- The Handbook API is launched and made available for use by registered Handbook website users

TBD

- Firms may choose to adopt the API directly, through third-party providers, or continue using the Handbook website and its refreshed search and tracking features

Suggested considerations

• Review whether current regulatory-change monitoring processes would benefit from ingesting FCA Handbook data through the new API.
• Confirm that your firm has a free Handbook website account and that internal users or vendors accessing the API are covered by the FCA’s terms and conditions.
• Assess whether the firm should connect the API directly to internal compliance systems or route access through a RegTech provider.
• Update internal governance for change management so that teams can use the API’s current-version content as the authoritative source for Handbook analysis.
• Rework rule-mapping, obligations registers, and control libraries to take advantage of structured Handbook content where this improves efficiency and accuracy.

What changed

• - The FCA has introduced the Handbook API to provide Handbook content in a structured, machine-readable format that systems can consume directly.
• The API is free to use for registered users with a free account on the FCA Handbook website, but use is subject to the FCA’s terms and conditions.
• The API is designed to support compliance monitoring, regulatory and policy change management, and other RegTech use cases.
• The API returns the latest version of Handbook content and does not provide historic Handbook versions.
• The API can be accessed only through compatible external applications such as Postman or RapidAPI, rather than directly through the website interface.

Key dates

August 2018

- EDMC established by the Court of Directors to provide independent decision‑making in contested enforcement cases and functional separation from investigation teams

January 2024

- EDMC Procedures published, setting out detailed processes for contested enforcement decisions, including panel composition and hearing arrangements

October 2025

- Bank of England commences recruitment for additional EDMC members, including a new Chair and Deputy Chair, to join in summer 2026

11 November 2025

- Closing date for applications for EDMC panel member roles, including potential Chair and Deputy Chair candidates

End of July 2026

- Term of Sir William Blair as EDMC Chair and of Philip Marsden as EDMC Deputy Chair expires

Suggested considerations

• Map all existing and potential enforcement exposures to the EDMC’s statutory remit, covering prudential regulation, FMI, resolution, securitisation, wholesale cash distribution, critical third parties and notes issuance.
• Review internal enforcement‑response playbooks to ensure they explicitly recognise the EDMC’s independent role and the January 2024 EDMC Procedures, including how contested cases will be heard and decided.
• Update board and senior management briefings on BoE/PRA enforcement to reflect the change in EDMC leadership and likely implications for contested case strategy and settlement versus contest decisions.
• Assess ongoing and anticipated enforcement matters for which the firm might contemplate contesting; incorporate the EDMC’s composition and procedures into litigation and regulatory strategy planning.
• Train Legal, Compliance and relevant business teams on the practical implications of the EDMC Procedures (panel size, hearing processes, written and oral representations, decision timelines) with scenario‑based exercises for contested cases.

What changed

• - The EDMC now has a new Chair (Nicholas Segal) and Deputy Chair (Peter King), replacing Sir William Blair and Philip Marsden whose terms ended in July 2026.
• The appointments are the outcome of an external recruitment process commenced in October 2025, aligned with the EDMC’s governance framework and five‑year renewable term structure.
• The scope of the EDMC’s remit continues to cover contested enforcement decisions across the Bank’s statutory regimes: Prudential Regulation, Financial Market Infrastructures, Resolution,...
• The EDMC Procedures, published in January 2024, remain the operative framework for how contested enforcement cases are handled, including panel constitution, hearing processes, and decision‑making...
• The EDMC continues to operate with functional separation from investigation teams and the Bank’s executive, preserving independence in contested enforcement decisions.

Key dates

31 July 2023

- Consumer Duty came into force for open products and services and firms were expected to have outcomes monitoring capability in place from day one

31 July 2024 Deadline

- The final Consumer Duty implementation deadline applied to all in-scope financial services firms

2025

- The FCA reviewed firms’ approaches to outcomes monitoring over the past year and published its findings in this blog and related review material

TBD (ongoing)

- Firms are expected to continue regular monitoring, testing, and evidence-gathering on an ongoing basis under PRIN 2A.9

Suggested considerations

• Firms must establish and maintain a documented outcomes monitoring framework that defines good and poor customer outcomes for each relevant product or service.
• Firms must map metrics to the full customer journey, including product design, communications, customer support, and distribution arrangements.
• Firms must collect MI that can identify poor or potentially poor outcomes, root causes, and emerging risks before harm crystallises.
• Firms must document the rationale for each metric, threshold, and tolerance, including why those measures are appropriate for the customer population and product.
• Firms must maintain a clear audit trail linking MI, governance review, decisions, remediation, and outcome improvement testing.

What changed

• - The FCA expects firms to regularly assess, test, understand, and evidence the outcomes retail customers are receiving under the Consumer Duty.
• Firms should use monitoring to identify whether any group of retail customers is experiencing different outcomes from another group for the same product and understand why those differences exist.
• Monitoring frameworks should define what good outcomes look like in practice and translate those outcomes into measurable indicators tied to the customer journey.
• Firms should not rely on broad or high-level MI alone; they must use information to challenge performance, identify risks, and drive improvements.
• Firms should be able to explain why metrics and tolerances were chosen and whether any actions taken have been tested and shown to reduce harm or friction.

Suggested considerations

• Conduct a board-level review of the firm’s business model, focusing on vertical integration, ownership and financing relationships to identify where commercial incentives may misalign with customer interests and create conflicts of interest.
• Map the full insurance value chain (underwriting, distribution, premium finance, ancillary services) within the group or related parties, and document actual and potential conflicts of interest at each link and interaction point.
• Review and, where necessary, update the firm’s conflicts-of-interest policy and SYSC 10 framework to explicitly cover vertically integrated structures, premium finance arrangements, delegated authorities and any intra-group referrals.
• Establish or strengthen governance arrangements to ensure clear senior management accountability for conflicts-of-interest management, including allocation of responsibilities in Statements of Responsibilities and the Management Responsibilities Map.
• Assess product design, panel construction and distribution strategies to ensure they are not unduly influenced by internal group relationships or remuneration structures that could lead to poor customer outcomes or unfair value.

What changed

• - The FCA explicitly highlights vertically integrated insurance business models (combining underwriting, distribution, premium finance and related services within one group) as a source of heightened...
• Ownership and financing relationships, including private and non-transparent arrangements within groups or between firms, are now clearly framed as potential conflicts drivers that must be assessed...
• The FCA reiterates that having conflicts of interest is not inherently unacceptable, but firms must actively identify, manage and evidence those conflicts through effective governance, senior...
• The FCA states that disclosure on its own is not sufficient; firms remain obligated to properly manage conflicts, and cannot rely solely on informing customers to discharge their duties.
• Firms are expected to review how they design products and panels, structure remuneration, and communicate with customers to ensure that commercial relationships and incentives do not distort customer...

Key dates

TBD (following consultation responses, expected late 2026 or later)

- The final Policy Statement would be published, and the proposals would take effect on publication

22 October 2026

- The consultation closes

Suggested considerations

• Firms planning a Part VIII transfer should map their transaction timetable against the PRA’s proposed step-by-step process and identify where the revised guidance may affect sequencing.
• Firms should assess whether their proposed transaction could qualify for a waiver of the transferee member vote and prepare supporting rationale and evidence accordingly.
• Firms should determine early whether the PRA is likely to expect an independent actuary’s report and build that workstream into the transaction plan.
• Firms should confirm whether the proposal applies to their structure, including whether they are a friendly society or another type of firm within scope.
• Firms and advisers should review current transaction playbooks and board papers to align them with the PRA’s stated approach before the consultation closes.

What changed

• - The PRA proposes to set out a typical sequence of steps firms would follow when undertaking a Part VIII transfer.
• The PRA proposes to provide greater transparency on its decision-making considerations for Part VIII transactions.
• The PRA proposes to explain when it may waive the requirement for a member vote by the transferee.
• The PRA proposes to explain when it may require an independent actuary’s report.
• The PRA proposes to clarify the scope of applicability of the process for both friendly societies and non-friendly-society firms.

Key dates

TBD (est. late 2026 / early 2027)

– Expected PRA policy statement and finalised amendments to the Statement of Policy on insurance business transfers, following consultation feedback (exact date not specified in the CP)

Early July 2026

– PRA publishes CP12/26 “Insurance friendly societies, amalgamations and transfers”, launching the consultation on proposed codified guidance and Statement of Policy amendments

Suggested considerations

• Map all current and planned amalgamations or transfers involving friendly societies against the proposed five‑part process (planning, analysis, member engagement and votes, application/notifications/representations, confirmation meetings) and identify procedural and evidential gaps.
• Review internal policies, governance frameworks, and transaction playbooks for friendly society restructurings to ensure they reflect the PRA’s codified expectations under Part VIII of the Friendly Societies Act 1992, including early regulatory engagement and documentation standards.
• Develop or enhance internal guidance for actuaries and finance teams on the required actuarial analysis for Part VIII transfers, ensuring the ability to evidence that preclusion grounds are not met and that the transaction is in the interests of members and policyholders.
• Implement procedures to identify all classes of members and policyholders affected by proposed amalgamations or transfers, assess whether their existing terms and conditions are preserved or materially changed, and document the implications for benefit levels and distribution.
• For partial transfers, establish a formal framework to assess and document how the interests of members remaining with the transferor society are considered, including any continuing obligations, capital support, and benefit expectations.

What changed

• - The PRA proposes a more detailed, codified description of the end‑to‑end Part VIII process for friendly society amalgamations and transfers, organised into stages such as planning and preparation,...
• The PRA intends to update and integrate its Statement of Policy on insurance business transfers to explicitly cover friendly society amalgamations and transfers under the Friendly Societies Act 1992,...
• For transfers, the PRA sets out circumstances in which it may exercise its statutory discretion to dispense with the requirement for the transferee friendly society to hold a member vote, subject to...
• The PRA proposes to clarify when it may direct the transferor and/or transferee to appoint an independent actuary to report on the proposed transfer’s effects on members and policyholders, including...
• Firms undertaking a Part VIII transfer will be expected to provide robust actuarial analysis and supporting evidence demonstrating that statutory preclusion grounds are not met and that the transfer...

Key dates

August 2021

- Start of the relevant period during which HDI Global SE submitted incorrect FSCS Liabilities and FSCS Fee Tariff data to the PRA

Summer 2023

- By this point, HDI Global SE had still not checked the PRA Rulebook or guidance on FSCS coverage and fee tariff methodology, illustrating the duration of governance and diligence failures

January 2024

- The Early Account Scheme (EAS) becomes part of the Bank of England’s enforcement policy for PRA firms and FMIs

August 2024

- End of the relevant period of misreporting, including errors in data submitted as purported remediation of earlier incorrect returns

November 2024

- The Bank of England updates its statutory statements of policy and procedure on enforcement, setting out the PRA’s approach to exercising enforcement powers under FSMA 2000

Suggested considerations

• Review and map all FSCS Liabilities and FSCS Fee Tariff reporting obligations under the PRA Rulebook and applicable guidance, ensuring the firm’s methodology aligns with regulatory definitions of FSCS-covered liabilities.
• Conduct a detailed end-to-end review of regulatory reporting processes for FSCS data, including data sourcing, calculations, validations, and submission workflows, to identify and remediate control weaknesses.
• Develop and document formal, robust written procedures that govern the calculation and validation of FSCS Liabilities and FSCS Fee Tariff data, including change-control processes for methodologies.
• Assign clear ownership and accountability for FSCS-related reporting within the firm’s governance framework, ensuring named individuals or functions are responsible for accuracy, completeness, and timely submission.
• Strengthen internal oversight, challenge and review mechanisms over prudential and FSCS-related reporting, including regular independent checks by risk, compliance or internal audit.

What changed

• - The PRA has explicitly reinforced that FSCS Liabilities and FSCS Fee Tariff data are core prudential reporting metrics, and misreporting them may both impede risk assessment and cause underpayment...
• The enforcement action clarifies that failures to consult the PRA Rulebook and applicable guidance on FSCS coverage and fee tariff methodologies constitute a breach of Fundamental Rule 2 (due skill,...
• The PRA has signalled that the absence of effective written processes for calculating regulatory data, and lack of clear accountability, internal oversight, and challenge over those calculations,...
• The case demonstrates that remediation submissions are subject to the same accuracy and governance expectations as original returns, and that errors in purported remediation will be treated as...
• The PRA’s Early Account Scheme (EAS), formally incorporated into its enforcement policy in January 2024, is now clearly positioned as a mechanism that can materially reduce penalties where firms...

Key dates

14 October 2026 Deadline

- Deadline for submitting responses to PRA Consultation Paper CP10/26 on the deletion of the Continuity of Provision of Services Chapter and related changes to the Ring‑fenced Bodies Part

Suggested considerations

• Assess the current use of the Continuity of Provision of Services Chapter in the Ring‑fenced Bodies Part within your firm’s ring‑fencing policies, procedures, contracts and governance, and identify all controls that explicitly rely on those rules.
• Prepare and submit a considered response to CP10/26 by 14 October 2026, addressing the practical impact of deleting the Continuity of Provision of Services Chapter, any residual areas of concern, and suggestions for guidance or transitional arrangements.
• Coordinate with group entities acting as permitted suppliers or critical service providers to ensure their OCIR documentation, service catalogues, TSAs and liquidity arrangements remain aligned with the ring‑fenced body’s continuity requirements in the absence of the deleted chapter.
• Monitor for the subsequent PRA policy statement that will follow CP10/26, and be prepared to implement any final rule changes, transitional provisions or clarifications on how ring‑fencing continuity expectations intersect with OCIR and operational resilience regimes.

What changed

• - The PRA proposes to delete in full the Continuity of Provision of Services Chapter in the Ring‑fenced Bodies Part of the PRA Rulebook, removing the specific ring‑fencing continuity‑of‑services...
• The PRA will make consequential amendments to the Ring‑fenced Bodies Part to remove or adjust cross‑references, defined terms and obligations that are linked to the deleted Continuity of Provision of...
• The proposal effectively retires the bespoke continuity‑of‑services construct that was introduced when ring‑fencing was implemented (including detailed constraints on termination, suspension or...
• The consultation paper explains how the PRA intends to align ring‑fenced bodies’ continuity‑of‑services expectations with existing supervisory statements on operational continuity in resolution (for...
• The PRA invites stakeholders to comment on whether deleting the Continuity of Provision of Services Chapter, and relying on the broader operational continuity regime, still adequately protects the...

Key dates

31 July 2023

– Consumer Duty (Principle 12 and PRIN 2A) applies to all new and existing in‑scope products and services open to new business for retail customers

31 July 2024

– Consumer Duty applies to closed products and services (legacy books), extending the expectations on product design, monitoring and fair value to those products

Suggested considerations

• Review and update product governance frameworks to ensure they explicitly incorporate Consumer Duty outcomes, including structured consideration of customer needs, characteristics and objectives at every stage of product design and lifecycle.
• Define and document granular target markets for each retail product and service, clearly articulating which customer segments the product is designed for, and excluding groups for whom the product could cause foreseeable harm.
• Map products and services against vulnerable‑customer characteristics and update design, features, pricing and servicing models to mitigate risks and support good outcomes for vulnerable groups.
• Implement or enhance processes to collect comprehensive management information on consumer outcomes (complaints, customer feedback, usage patterns, lapse and cancellation data, arrears and forbearance metrics) for each product.
• Establish governance mechanisms to ensure that insights from monitoring and MI lead to timely, documented actions to improve products, pricing, communications or customer journeys where emerging risks or poor outcomes are identified.

What changed

• - FCA reinforces that product design must be explicitly based on evidenced consumer needs, characteristics and behaviours, rather than generic assumptions or internal commercial priorities.
• Firms are expected to define target markets at a granular level, avoiding broad or generic categories that mask differing needs or risks (especially for vulnerable customers).
• Product governance must be embedded into business‑as‑usual decision‑making with clear ownership, challenge and accountability, not treated as a one‑off Consumer Duty implementation project.
• Manufacturers and distributors must maintain robust, ongoing monitoring of consumer outcomes using a wide range of management information, including complaints, usage patterns, early cancellations...
• There must be a clear, demonstrable link between monitoring and remedial action; collecting data without acting on emerging risks is characterised as weak practice.

Key dates

18 November 2025

– Consultation on the proposed motor finance redress scheme closes (CP25/27), feeding into the final PS26/3 rules

5 December 2025 Deadline

– Firms must start sending final responses to any motor leasing complaint in line with normal complaint‑handling rules (outside the scheme‑specific pause)

1 May 2026

– FCA confirms its motor finance compensation scheme has been legally challenged, triggering the Upper Tribunal process

31 May 2026

– FCA lifts the general pause on handling certain motor finance complaints, returning many complaints to standard DISP timeframes, alongside the emerging scheme

30 June 2026

– Original end of the implementation period for loans taken out from 1 April 2014 under PS26/3 (now effectively paused for redress calculation/payment/communications)

Suggested considerations

• Identify and maintain a complete inventory of motor finance complaints and agreements that fall within the scheme scope (regulated motor finance with relevant commission arrangements between April 2007 and 2024).
• Continue to gather, centralise and validate data on commission structures, commission levels, and disclosure practices for all in‑scope agreements, including by issuing targeted information requests to brokers and dealers.
• Implement internal workflows to ensure brokers respond to lenders’ information requests within one month, or formally confirm where requested documents or data are not held.
• Review and classify complaints to determine which consumers are not owed compensation under the scheme, including cases outside scope and those lacking discretionary, high or tied commission arrangements, and prepare appropriate communications.
• Assess complaints for time‑bar issues and apply the scheme’s limitation and out‑of‑time principles consistently, documenting rationale for any reliance on time‑bar to decline redress.

What changed

• - Parts of the FCA motor finance consumer redress scheme under PS26/3 are formally suspended by order of the Upper Tribunal, on terms agreed between the FCA and four challengers (Consumer...
• During the suspension, firms are not required to calculate redress, pay compensation, or send communications about compensation owed under the scheme according to the original timetable.
• All non‑suspended rules remain fully applicable, including duties to identify in‑scope complaints and agreements, gather commission and disclosure data (including from brokers), and maintain records.
• Lenders must continue to identify relevant complaints and agreements falling within scheme scope (motor finance agreements between 2007 and 2024 with potentially unfair commission arrangements).
• Firms must continue to gather data on commission arrangements and disclosure practices, including obtaining information from brokers and confirming where such information is not held.

Key dates

31 July 2022

- FCA expected to make the original Consumer Duty rules following CP21/13, establishing the baseline regime and Principle 12

31 July 2023

- Consumer Duty comes into force for open (non‑closed‑book) products and services, triggering initial implementation across retail distribution chains

First half of 2026

- FCA planned consultation on revisions to the Consumer Duty scope and exemptions, including clearer delineation of business‑to‑business activity, reliance arrangements in distribution chains and removal of non‑UK customers from scope

Late 2026 (TBD)

- FCA to consult on further changes to client classification, sharpening the distinction between retail and professional markets and clarifying the treatment of sophisticated investors under the Consumer Duty

June 2026 (indicative)

- FCA expected to issue a consultation paper on Duty scope, proportionality and application to wholesale‑only and early‑chain firms, including potential changes to definitions and categorisation of manufacturers versus supporting firms

Suggested considerations

• Map all business lines and activities to identify which are genuinely wholesale, early‑chain or business‑to‑business, and assess where the firm does or does not “shape consumer outcomes” at the end of the chain.
• Review existing Consumer Duty scoping decisions for activities such as market making, custody, safeguarding and other wholesale services, and prepare to adjust those decisions in line with FCA case studies and clarified boundaries.
• Re‑evaluate cross‑border business conducted for non‑UK clients to determine which products and services may fall outside the Consumer Duty under the proposed narrowed territorial scope, and document the basis for this classification.
• Analyse multi‑party distribution chains and co‑manufacturing arrangements to clearly delineate responsibilities, reliance points and escalation mechanisms where other firms are expected to meet their Consumer Duty obligations.
• Update product governance and Consumer Duty frameworks to distinguish between “manufacturers” and supporting firms, ensuring manufacturers continue to meet full Duty requirements while supporting firms apply Principle 12 and cross‑cutting rules proportionately.

What changed

• - The FCA is consulting on clearer scope boundaries for the Consumer Duty to confirm that wholesale, business‑to‑business activities that do not shape retail consumer outcomes should normally be out...
• The FCA will provide case studies and examples of “grey areas” to illustrate when activities are, and are not, caught by the Duty, particularly for early‑chain and wholesale‑only firms.
• The FCA is clarifying accountability in multi‑firm arrangements, confirming that each firm is responsible for its own activities, can rely on other firms to meet their obligations where appropriate,...
• The FCA plans to reduce duplication of obligations across distribution chains, including refining how the “look‑through” concept and co‑manufacturing apply where firms do not directly interact with...
• The FCA is narrowing the territorial scope of the Consumer Duty so that business conducted for genuinely non‑UK customers will generally be out of scope, aligning with the principle that local...

Key dates

01 April 2025

- Start of the reporting period for the Bank of England and PRA’s 2025/26 Prescribed Persons whistleblowing report

31 March 2026

- End of the reporting period for the 2025/26 whistleblowing disclosures referenced in the Bank and PRA report

By 30 September 2026 (within six months of 31 March 2026) Deadline

- Latest date by which the Bank and PRA are required under the Prescribed Persons (Reports on Disclosures of Information) Regulations 2017 to publish the written annual report on disclosures for the 2025/26 period

Suggested considerations

• Establish clear internal processes for responding when the PRA or Bank contacts the firm following a whistleblowing disclosure, including immediate escalation to Compliance, Legal, and relevant Senior Managers, coordinated responses, and robust documentation of remedial actions.

What changed

• - Prescribed Persons reporting obligations under the Prescribed Persons (Reports on Disclosures of Information) Regulations 2017 continue to apply, requiring the Bank and PRA to publish, within six...
• For the 2025/26 period, the Bank and PRA report that 271 disclosures were received and assessed against the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 and their own statutory requirements to determine...
• Of the 271 disclosures, 257 were reasonably believed to be protected disclosures within Part IVA of the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 and within the Bank’s and PRA’s remit as Prescribed...
• Fourteen disclosures were assessed as not protected, including disclosures about firms not regulated by the Bank or PRA, issues outside the Bank’s or PRA’s regulatory remit, and individuals who do...
• Regardless of statutory protection status, the Bank and PRA’s whistleblowing team provided supervisory colleagues with all disclosures (protected and non‑protected) for consideration or for...

Key dates

01 March 2025

- Start of the reporting period covered by the EDMC annual report

Summer 2026 Deadline

- Remaining EDMC members, including the incoming Chair and Deputy Chair, are due to be appointed

28 February 2026

- End of the reporting period covered by the EDMC annual report

28 February 2026

- As of this date, the PRA enforcement team was overseeing five cases, including investigations into five firms and five individuals

June 2026

- The EDMC annual report for 2025/26 was published

Suggested considerations

• Review your firm’s PRA enforcement response plan to ensure it supports rapid collection, review, and production of material that may be disclosed in a contested case.
• Ensure legal and compliance teams are prepared to make both written and oral representations to the EDMC if the firm becomes subject to a contested enforcement matter.
• Confirm that internal governance provides for independent escalation and board-level oversight when a PRA investigation enters the decision stage.
• Maintain an updated settlement strategy for PRA matters, including documented positions on fairness, scope of admissions, and mitigation, because the EDMC may review settlement processes retrospectively.
• Map exposure across all PRA enforcement regimes relevant to the business, including prudential regulation, FMI, resolution, securitisation, wholesale cash distribution, critical third parties, and S&NI banknote matters.

What changed

• - The EDMC completed its annual reporting cycle for the period 1 March 2025 to 28 February 2026, confirming the continued operation of the PRA’s contested-case decision framework.
• The report confirms that the EDMC continues to provide functional separation between investigation/enforcement staff and decision-makers in PRA contested enforcement cases.
• The report confirms that the EDMC’s role covers enforcement cases under the Bank’s statutory regimes for prudential regulation, financial market infrastructure, resolution, securitisation, wholesale...
• The EDMC confirms that contested enforcement decisions are made independently, with disclosure of relevant material and the opportunity for both written and oral representations.
• The EDMC confirms that its decision is the final stage of administrative decision-making in contested PRA enforcement cases, after which the subject may refer the matter to the Upper Tribunal.

Key dates

15 July 2025

– Payments Vision Delivery Committee agrees the new public‑private model to deliver the next‑generation UK retail payments infrastructure under the National Payments Vision

Late 2026

– HM Treasury and the Bank of England are expected to publish conclusions on whether, and in what form, to proceed with a digital pound, which will influence infrastructure design and multi‑money functionality (date inferred as “later this year”)

25 June 2026

– Retail Payments Infrastructure Board consultation on the design of the future UK retail payments infrastructure is launched

11 September 2026 Deadline

– Deadline for stakeholders to submit responses to the RPIB consultation on the next‑generation retail payments infrastructure

Suggested considerations

• Identify internal stakeholders (payments product, technology, operations, legal, compliance, risk) and establish a formal project to coordinate your firm’s response to the RPIB consultation.
• Perform a gap analysis of your firm’s current use of Faster Payments, Bacs and cheque imaging, focusing on account‑to‑account capabilities, cross‑border flows, fraud and financial crime controls, customer authentication and operational resilience.
• Map and document key payment journeys relevant to your firm (e.g. point‑of‑sale account‑to‑account payments, bill payments, peer‑to‑peer transfers, ecommerce, cross‑border transactions) to enable substantive feedback on user needs and design priorities.
• Assess your firm’s strategic interest in account‑to‑account payments at the point of sale and enhanced cross‑border services, and identify functional requirements (APIs, messaging, reconciliation, chargeback‑like protections) that should be reflected in the consultation response.
• Review emerging regulatory publications under the National Payments Vision and Payments Forward Plan to ensure your consultation input aligns with expected regulatory outcomes on access, competition, resilience and innovation.

What changed

• - The RPIB has opened a consultation to develop a high‑level “blueprint” for the future UK retail payments infrastructure, which will underpin the National Payments Vision and inform the design to be...
• The consultation scope explicitly covers payment journeys, key design choices and priorities for the next‑generation infrastructure, rather than setting immediate prescriptive rules for firms.
• The next‑generation infrastructure is intended to support new payment methods, including account‑to‑account payments at the point of sale (in‑store and online) as a complement to card payments, and...
• Existing retail interbank payment systems (Faster Payments, Bacs, Image Clearing System) operated by Pay.UK will continue to run safely and resiliently during the transition, implying a multi‑year...
• The new infrastructure is being designed to support a multi‑money ecosystem, including existing commercial bank money and emerging forms of digital money (e‑money, tokenised deposits, systemic...