On 25 March 2025, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) launched its new 5-year strategy for 2025-2030, which aims to deepen trust, rebalance risk, support growth and improve lives.

The FCA’s strategy focuses on four priorities, which are intended to reinforce each other:

  • Being a smarter regulator that is predictable, purposeful and proportionate, and improving its processes and embrace technology to become more efficient and effective.
  • Supporting sustained economic growth by supporting investment and innovation to ensure the continued competitiveness of UK financial services.
  • Helping consumers navigate their financial lives by working with industry to boost trust, product innovation and ensuring the right information and support is available for people to take financial decisions.
  • Fighting financial crime, with a focus on those who seek to use the fact they are regulated to do harm. The FCA plans to go further to disrupt criminals and support firms to be an effective line of defence.

In relation to being a smarter regulator, the FCA explains that it will:

  • Continue to reform how it regulates, including taking a more flexible approach to supervision with less intense supervision for those “demonstrably seeking to do the right thing”. More regulated firms will have direct contact points with the FCA.
  • “Significantly streamline” how it sets its supervisory priorities, with a small number of market reports being published once a year setting out the risks and opportunities it sees, and more sharing of insights from supervisory work.
  • Have a streamlined portfolio of enforcement cases, with the same number of outcomes but delivered faster.
  • Digitise and simplify authorisation processes with the aim of making it easier to apply, reducing follow-up requests and resulting in better quality information being provided to the FCA.
  • Launch “My FCA”, a single entry-point for firms to enable all tasks (including data provision and paying fees) to be managed in one place.

To support growth, the FCA flags that it will:

  • Work to ensure UK financial services can contribute to the wider economy, including through changes to disclosure requirements and widening retail access to investment opportunities.
  • Support improvements in productivity through an increasingly “tech-positive” approach, relying on existing standards and focusing on outcomes where possible, rather than imposing prescriptive new rules.
  • Launch Open Finance to help unlock product innovation and deliver lower costs, more choice and better information for consumers.

To help consumers navigate their financial lives, the FCA’s plans include:

  • Reviewing its rules to ensure they work for the future, allowing for product innovation and widened access.
  • Working with industry to ensure people get the support and information they need.
  • Making the Consumer Duty integral to how regulated financial firms treat their customers.

Finally, to fight financial crime, the FCA’s strategy includes:

  • Focusing its resources on firms seeking to use FCA authorisation as a cover for crime.
  • Working with regulated firms that want to play their part in tackling crime.
  • Sharing intelligence and coordinating action with domestic and international law enforcement and regulators.
  • Continuing to drive awareness of investment and authorised push payment fraud.

Jonathan Herbst commented:

“The FCA’s message is a steady as she goes reiteration of a proportionate and predictable approach. The message is that there will be change but it will be measured and not knee jerk. This is surely welcome and is an antidote to the narrative that there is some magic wand solution towards deregulation. Steady as she goes may not sound exciting but it may be the right message for the regulators to send in a period of instability.”