On 26 March 2026, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published its annual work programme 2026/27.

The work programme sets out what the FCA intends to deliver in 2026/27 and focuses on four strategic priorities:

  • Being a smarter, more efficient and effective regulator.
  • Supporting growth, helping consumers and fighting financial crime.
  • Consultation on FCA fees and levies.
  • Publication of the FCA perimeter report.

Smarter, more efficient and effective regulator

The programme outlines the following priorities:

  • Integrating AI into regulatory workflows: To enable the FCA to detect harm more effectively and speed up regulatory decision-making. 
  • Using generative AI to review documents received from firms: To support faster decisions, the FCA set out that subject to successful testing it will begin rolling this out across authorisations and supervision. 
  • Using a new sandbox environment to test automated data feeds between the FCA and firms: To reduce manual effort and improve the timeliness and reliability of intelligence.
  • Investing in smarter case handling: To use analytics and digital tools to quickly identify the greatest sources of harm and triage intelligence more efficiently.
  • Expanding the supercharged sandbox: This will become open to a new cohort of firms and giving them access to high-quality synthetic data so innovative, AI-driven financial products can be safely tested. 
  • Reducing burdens on firms: By removing three more regular data returns, reducing the frequency of another, and moving more regulatory tasks onto My FCA, so firms can manage everything in one place. 
  • Improving firms’ experience of regulation: Aiming for faster authorisation timelines, simplified digital forms, and a new scorecard to better understand and respond to what firms need. 

Supporting growth, helping consumers and fighting financial crime

The programme outlines the following priorities:

  • Unlocking capital investment and liquidity across UK markets: Consulting on the pension charge cap with the aim of facilitating access to a broader range of asset classes while maintaining an appropriate degree of consumer protection. 
  • Further speeding up initial public offering applications: Proposal to remove the 7-day research waiting period.
  • Expanding the FCA’s overseas presence: In particular the United Arab Emirates, China and India.
  • Beginning regulation of deferred payment credit (Buy Now Pay Later): From July 2026 the FCA will be requiring affordability checks and reviewing authorisation applications.
  • Creating a single, end-to-end, intelligence-led service: This is intended to spot and stop the highest harm financial promotions faster, at lower cost and in a more consistent way.

Consultation on FCA fees and levies

The FCA highlights that it has also published a consultation on its fees and levies for the year ahead, in particular to increase minimum and flat rate fees, as well as application fees, to what would be an increase of 1%, in line with the increase in ongoing regulatory activities budget and below the rate of inflation.  

Perimeter report

The FCA have also published its perimeter report for 2026/27 and have set out that it is asking for government action on certain areas where changes to the perimeter are needed, including in relation to:

  • Exemptions in the Financial Promotion Order: Removal of self-certification and higher thresholds for high net worth/sophisticated investors, to close consumer protection gaps.
  • Trustees: To tighten the regime for when trustees require authorisation.
  • Sports and non-financial spread betting: To seek clarity from the Treasury on the regulatory boundary for these products, which the FCA considers better suited to a distinct regulatory framework.
  • Payments: To seek changes to modernise the regulatory framework so it is agile enough to mitigate new and existing risks (e.g. financial crime) and support innovation and, for open banking, the FCA proposes unlocking the benefits of secure data sharing and driving forward open finance to boost innovation, competition and long-term economic growth. 

Other key new issues highlighted in this year’s report that the FCA explain fall outside of its perimeter but may pose risks to consumers include:

  • ‘Annex 1 firms: As these firms are only regulated for money laundering purposes and not subject to our wider rules, that also create risks for regulated firms doing business with them.
  • AI use: The growing use of general-purpose AI for guidance on borrowing, saving and investing

Speculative prediction market products: In particular those which have expanded rapidly overseas.