Regulatory Tracker
Key developments across FCA, PRA, Bank of England, and EU and global bodies - consultations, rules, and the deadlines that follow them.
The FCA has published guidance on good and poor practice for AI use in financial services, drawing on supervisory work and AI Lab initiatives. The guidance clarifies how existing rules (PRIN, SYSC, Consumer Duty, SM&CR, operational resilience) apply to AI deployment and sets expectations across governance, accountability, consumer protection, and third-party risk.
The FCA has published feedback to its discussion paper on supporting a stronger investment culture. The FCA has committed to consulting in early 2027 on risk information rules, reviewing financial promotion rules for high-risk investments, and examining appropriateness assessments and model portfolio services.
The FCA has published supervisory guidance identifying good and poor practices among CFD firms in meeting Consumer Duty price and fair value obligations. Firms are flagged for concerns about overnight funding charges and client disclosures, with the FCA indicating it will monitor compliance and follow up with individual firms.
The FCA has published supervisory observations from visits to 7 UK retail brokers assessing their market abuse surveillance arrangements, particularly for insider dealing detection. The FCA identified material weaknesses in alert investigation, decision-making, and senior management oversight of surveillance systems, and has required all firms visited to strengthen their arrangements.
The FCA and PRA have finalised replacement guidance and rules on loan-to-income (LTI) flow limits in mortgage lending, following an FPC recommendation. The new framework allows individual lenders to increase their share of high LTI lending above 15%, while aiming to maintain the aggregate flow at the 15% limit.
The Upper Tribunal will hear legal challenges to the FCA's motor finance compensation scheme between 16–26 February 2027. Until the judgment, firms must continue complying with scheme rules and prepare operationally and financially for the possibility the scheme may be quashed, requiring return to standard complaint-handling processes.
The FCA has published findings from a review of governance arrangements at a sample of benchmark administrators, identifying weaknesses in board composition, management information, risk frameworks, and oversight practices. The review covers five governance areas and provides broader lessons for the sector to consider.
The Bank of England-chaired Cross-Market Operational Resilience Group (CMORG) completed SIMEX26, a biennial simulation exercise involving 38 of the largest and most systemically important UK banks and market infrastructure operators, focused on a global cloud services disruption scenario. The Bank now expects firms to take action based on the exercise to strengthen their resilience and ability to respond to severe operational and cyber scenarios.
The FCA is consulting on new rules requiring authorised fund managers to set a minimum 90-day redemption notice period for Non-UCITS Retail Schemes (NURS) funds that invest substantially in illiquid assets such as property and infrastructure. This aims to align UK standards with international liquidity requirements and give investors clearer visibility of liquidity risk, while giving fund managers time to conduct orderly asset sales and reducing the risk of fund suspensions.
FCA consultation paper proposing new rules to align retail investment fund redemption terms with the time required to sell illiquid assets, bringing UK practice into line with international standards. The proposal requires a minimum 90-day notice period for NURS funds substantially invested in illiquid assets to reduce liquidity risk and investor harm.
The PRA proposes that 128 regulatory thresholds across banking, insurance and credit unions automatically increase with nominal GDP going forward, replacing manual ad hoc updates. The first update would occur on 1 July 2031, with further updates every five years thereafter, affecting capital reporting, Solvency UK, and Small Domestic Deposit Takers regime thresholds.
HM Treasury has appointed six financial institutions as Joint Lead Managers for DIGIT, the UK's first digitally native government bond pilot, following completion of a procurement process. The pilot issuance is expected in Q1 2027 and will test how distributed ledger technology can be applied to sovereign bond issuance and lifecycle management.
The FCA is consulting on guidance, consequential amendments, and transitional provisions to help firms implement its new transaction reporting rules, which will replace the existing UK MiFIR framework. Investment firms, trading venue operators, and other market participants must provide feedback by 6 November 2026 to help shape the final implementation framework.
From 30 September 2026, crypto firms can apply for FCA authorisation under the UK's new regulated cryptoasset regime. Firms must apply by 28 February 2027, and the regime comes into force on 25 October 2027, bringing cryptoasset businesses into full FCA regulation with standards covering consumer protection, asset safeguarding, market integrity, and financial resilience.
The FCA has finalised technical notes on disclosure requirements and working capital statements for listed issuers, and opened a consultation on new guidance for compliance-or-explain in relation to sustainability disclosure requirements coming into force 1 January 2027. Listed companies should begin preparing for the new sustainability disclosure regime now.
The FCA is consulting on updates to technical notes in the Knowledge Base to support the new sustainability disclosure regime for listed issuers, which comes into force 1 January 2027. Comments are due by 28 October 2026.
The FCA has finalised updates to two technical notes in the Knowledge Base on disclosure requirements for listed issuers: TN 321.5 on working capital statements and risk factors, and TN 619.3 on Prospectus Rules disclosure requirements. These follow consultation in PMB 63 (27 April 2026) and are now in force.
The FCA has published finalised guidance on how cryptoasset firms must complete the overall risk assessment required under CRYPTOPRU 7. The guidance explains how firms should identify risks, run stress tests, plan recovery actions and prepare for wind-down. This guidance comes into force on 25 October 2027.
The Bank of England's Financial Policy Committee identified heightened interconnected risks to financial stability, with specific emphasis on cyber and operational resilience vulnerabilities emerging from rapid advances in frontier AI. The Committee underscores the importance of timely and careful management of these intensifying risks.
The FCA has published finalised guidance on how to complete the overall risk assessment required under COREPRU 7, explaining how to link business model, risk appetite, financial resource planning and wind-down planning into a coherent process. The guidance applies to FCA solo-regulated firms (including cryptoasset service providers) and will come into force on 25 October 2027.
The FCA published findings from a multi-firm review of money mule activity, highlighting that over 230,000 suspected mule accounts were closed in 2025 and that cashing out occurs primarily in the second to fifth transaction. Firms are expected to review and strengthen their financial crime controls for detecting and disrupting money mule activity based on these findings.
The FCA has published final findings from its Pure Protection Market Study, highlighting that competition works well for existing customers but millions lack protection insurance coverage. The FCA reminds firms of Consumer Duty and product governance requirements, will hold a webinar to address rule misunderstandings, and invites participation in a TechSprint by 13 November.
The Bank of England and FCA have established a Harmonisation Taskforce with three working groups to inform the design of a long-term approach to harmonising UK MiFIR, UK EMIR, and UK SFTR reporting requirements. The inaugural meeting was held on 3 July 2026, with meeting minutes and supporting materials now published.
The FCA has published findings from its review of SME access to finance and identified three regulatory focus areas to reduce friction: supporting proportionate Consumer Credit Act reform, helping unlock open finance benefits with SME lending as a priority, and monitoring industry work on digital verification to reduce duplicated compliance checks. The guidance signals regulatory expectations for how firms should engage with these developments.
The FCA has published guidance on how payments and e-money firms should deliver good outcomes for consumers in vulnerable circumstances under the Consumer Duty. The guidance highlights that approximately half of UK adults show at least one vulnerability characteristic, making this a firm-wide obligation not a niche concern.
The FCA has published a good and poor practice publication following its review of how payments firms support consumers in vulnerable circumstances under the Consumer Duty. The publication sets out findings on what works and where firms can strengthen their approaches to identifying vulnerability, monitoring outcomes, and improving support.
The FCA has published its feedback statement on SME access to finance following a call for input opened in March 2026. The FCA found that its regulation is not a major barrier to SME finance but identified three areas for regulatory improvement: monitoring digital verification for customer checks, delivering proportionate Consumer Credit Act reform, and enabling open finance for SME lending.
The Bank of England has announced its implementation approach for the Monetary Policy Committee's decision to unwind gilt holdings in the Asset Purchase Facility over a multi-year period, selling £20 billion annually. The Bank is pausing APF auctions while reviewing a model to sell gilts to HM Treasury/the Debt Management Office at market prices, with a final decision expected by April 2027.
The FCA has published final guidance (PS26/18) on when cryptoasset activities require FCA authorisation under the new regulatory regime. The regime comes into force on 25 October 2027, with the authorisation application window opening on 30 September 2026 and closing on 28 February 2027 for transitional arrangements.
The FCA has published final guidance on the cryptoasset regulatory perimeter, clarifying when authorisation is required under the new regime. Firms must apply between 30 September 2026 and 28 February 2027 to use transitional arrangements before the regime takes effect on 25 October 2027.
The Bank of England has revised the criteria for which deposit-taking firms must submit Form BT monthly. Going forward, only firms also required to submit specified Money and Credit statistical returns (Forms BE, BN, GT, or ER) must report Form BT monthly; others revert to quarterly submission, subject to individual Bank notification.
The FCA is seeking views on whether tokenising gold (creating digital tokens representing physical gold ownership) could improve trading, transfer, pledging and holding in UK wholesale markets. Responses will inform potential future guidance or a bespoke regulatory regime for tokenised gold.
The FCA and Bank of England received 123 responses to their May 2026 call for input on tokenisation in wholesale markets. This feedback statement summarises industry views and sets out the regulators' next steps, including development of a joint tokenisation roadmap and planned consultation on cryptoasset safeguarding rules in H1 2027.
The FCA is consulting on two minor changes to its general insurance value measures reporting rules to reduce firm burden. The changes would remove two reporting requirements that the FCA does not publish or use widely in supervision, while maintaining data quality for transparency and Consumer Duty compliance.
The FCA's quarterly miscellaneous consultation (CP26/32) proposes seven minor amendments to the FCA Handbook covering readily realisable securities, cryptoasset deferral, complaints data reporting, and Money Market Fund reporting requirements. These tend to be technical changes but firms should provide feedback on all proposals.
The FCA has announced a review of Child Trust Funds that will assess whether firms are ensuring fair value under the Consumer Duty and whether vulnerable young adults face barriers to accessing their savings. The review will report in 2027 and may lead to supervisory expectations or rules changes.
The Bank of England has deferred the entire November 2026 RTGS standards release (including CHAPS messaging standards) to maintain global alignment with Swift's delay of its November 2026 Standards Release. The deferral was coordinated to avoid implementation risks and separation of changes at a late stage.
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