The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has published a speech delivered by its chief executive, Nikhil Rtahi, at TheCityUK’s annual conference. The speech sets out the FCA’s strategic vision for the UK financial services sector, emphasising the need to accelerate growth and innovation through regulatory reform, enhanced data visibility, and a strengthened risk culture. It also highlights the regulator’s shift to outcomes-based regulation, its efforts to support capital markets and innovation, and the central importance of maintaining market integrity.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has published a speech by its executive director of markets and of international, Sarah Pritchard, on the proposed capital Final market reforms, including listing reform, a consolidated tape for bonds, and changes to the bond and derivative transparency regime.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has published a speech by its executive director for markets and executive director for international, Sarah Pritchard, on listings reform; the public offers and admissions to trading regime; investment research; the digital securities sandbox and PISCES (the new private intermittent capital exchange system); and the pensions Value for Money framework, which the FCA is consulting on.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has published a speech by its deputy chief executive, Sarah Pritchard, on the growing importance of private markets, their ‘significant potential to drive innovation and economic growth’, and the FCA’s work to improve understanding of key areas such as valuations and leverage, including at international level.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has published a speech by its executive director of markets and international, Sarah Pritchard, on the importance of financial inclusion, enabled by innovation, in unlocking economic opportunities. Pritchard says that the FCA welcomes the government's focus on developing a national financial inclusion strategy and plans to support it through its own upcoming 5-year strategy, which will prioritise consumer resilience.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has published a speech by its executive director for markets and for international, Sarah Pritchard, in which she says the new regulatory framework presents a ‘once-in-a-generation opportunity to undertake a review of our rules, making sure they match our market and our risk appetite’. The FCA plans to consult on its new regulatory regime in autumn 2024, and to finalise rules in the first half of 2025. Pritchard said the FCA ‘will lean on the Consumer Duty, where it is most effective and efficient to do so’.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has published a speech delivered by its executive director for supervision, policy and competition and executive director for international, Sarah Pritchard, at Quoted Companies Alliance Annual Conference, London. The speech detailed the FCA’s five‐year strategy to modernise and strengthen the UK’s public markets by enhancing operational efficiency and reducing regulatory burdens. It outlined measures to accelerate authorisations, simplify capital rules to reduce red tape, and discontinue outdated data collections.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has published a speech by its executive director of risk and compliance oversight, Sheree Howard, on financial services issues for women, including tailored investment advice and their progression opportunities in the sector. Howard said women are under-represented in financial services, both as employees and as investors, and called for an industry culture that attracts rather than deters the top talent from all backgrounds.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has published a speech by its joint executive director of enforcement and market oversight, Steve Smart, in which he said the regulator is focused on speeding up the pace of its investigations and making the different components of the organisation such as enforcement, supervision and authorisations work together more seamlessly. Smart added that the FCA has received over 1,000 responses from firms that operate in wholesale and insurance markets in response to its request for information about firms’ experiences of non-financial misconduct in their workforces. The FCA will publish an update from this work in the autumn of 2024.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has published a speech by its joint executive director of enforcement and market oversight, Therese Chambers, in which she addressed the FCA’s enforcement priorities and its proposals for publicising enforcement investigations set out in consultation paper CP24/2. She noted stakeholders’ desire for greater definition on any new public interest test and said that the FCA plans to intensify its engagement with ‘those on all sides of the debate’ and provide greater detail on how its proposals could work in practice, later in autumn 2024.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has published a speech by its joint executive director of enforcement and market oversight, Therese Chambers, on ‘the unseen fight against financial crime’. Chambers said enforcement ‘is about more than just headlines. It also includes the quieter work of supervision, market oversight and proactive detection’.

Law360, Expert analysis: The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is consulting on significant changes to the safeguarding requirements for payments firms, with the consultation closing in December 2024. The FCA's eventual goal is to replace the current safeguarding regime with a new one, influenced by existing client money rules that apply to authorised firms holding client money, the current account switch service, known as CASS. Written by Matt Hancock, shareholder at Greenberg Traurig LLP.