On 15 September 2025, The Financial Services and Markets Act 2023 (Capital Buffers and Macro-prudential Measures) (Consequential Amendments) Regulations 2025 were made.
These Regulations come into force on 30 November 2025.
Background
The Capital Requirements (Capital Buffers and Macro-prudential Measures) Regulations 2014 (the 2014 Capital Buffers Regulations) are revoked by virtue of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2023 (Commencement No 9) Regulations 2025 and partly restated by the Capital Buffers and Macro-prudential Measures Regulations 2025 with technical modifications to improve the effectiveness of the overall capital buffer framework. This approach will remove two capital buffers from legislation (the Capital Conservation buffer and Global Systemically Important Institutions buffer) and responsibility for setting these buffers will be transferred to the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA).
Other regulations will be restated, with some technical modifications, where they relate to capital buffers that are set by the Bank of England’s Financial Policy Committee (FPC) (the Countercyclical Capital buffer and the Other Systemically Important Institutions buffer). This is because the FPC does not have broad rulemaking powers like the PRA, and the regulations that underpin the use of its tools must be set out in legislation. The revocation and restatement took effect on 31 July 2025.
Revocation and restatement
The Regulations now published make certain technical amendments to legislation following the revocation and restatement of the 2014 Capital Buffers Regulations. Among other things, the Regulations ensure that existing references to the 2014 Capital Buffers Regulations in other legislation, such as the Bank of England Act 1998 and retained EU technical standards, are updated accordingly.