On 15 July 2025, HM Treasury (HMT) issued a consultation which sets out certain changes the government is proposing in relation to the overarching regulatory framework for financial services.

Key points in the consultation include:

  • The Chancellor has asked the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to report back to her, by the end of September, on how it plans to address concerns about the application of the Consumer Duty for firms primarily engaged in wholesale activity. The FCA will set out, in its report, how it plans to deal with concerns about the way the Consumer Duty is working for wholesale firms engaged in distribution chains which impact retail consumers and provide certainty on the categorisation of professional clients. It will test its plans with market participants, industry and consumer groups before reporting back.
  • The government will set new deadlines for determining applications for new firm authorisations, variations of permission, and senior manager applications. In paragraph 2.5 of the consultation HMT sets out a table setting out the current statutory deadlines and the government’s proposed changes for these application types. The government has also published correspondence between itself and the PRA and FCA regarding the speed of regulatory approvals and KPIs and metrics for authorisation processes.
  • To ensure that the regulators always set clear public goals and priorities within their remits, the government will legislate, when Parliamentary time allows, to require the FCA and the Prudential Regulation Authority to set out long-term strategies for how they will advance their objectives, including their secondary objective to facilitate growth and international competitiveness.
  • The government will legislate, when Parliamentary time allows, to change the way that “have regards” work by removing the requirement to consider each “have regard” when the regulators make day-to-day decisions and instead require the regulators to have regard to the regulatory principles and remit letter when producing their new long-term strategies.

The deadline for comments is 9 September 2025.