From 30 April 2025, we will stop issuing and publishing portfolio-level supervisory communications (Portfolio Letters) and replace these with a small number of market-level reports. The first of these new reports will be published later this year.

As part of our Consumer Duty Requirements Review, we’re streamlining how we set our supervisory priorities to support our commitment to smarter, more effective regulation.

As a result, we've reviewed over 100 existing Portfolio Letters and Dear CEO Letters which pre-date our strategy 2022-25. We will withdraw many of these letters at the end of April and clearly mark them as ‘historical’ on our website.

Historical letters will remain publicly accessible at existing links. There are a small number of pre-2022 letters that remain relevant to firms which will remain on the website in their current form.

These changes are in line with the commitment in our new strategy to be a smarter regulator by streamlining how we set our supervisory priorities and communicate to firms.

We will still use Dear CEO Letters to address senior people about significant issues that require quick action.

We will also consider how we can more routinely review future communications so that outdated material is regularly withdrawn.

My FCA is now live for all registered and authorised firms. This single access portal is designed to save you time and reduce complexity when meeting your regulatory obligations.

It brings together your regulatory reporting and attestation responsibilities in one place, offering a more streamlined experience.

Sign in using your existing sign in credentials, to view your scheduled tasks in Connect and RegData. You will see due dates, statuses and direct links to each task.

We’re pleased to see so many have already signed in to My FCA since it launched on 31 March 2025. If you have not yet explored it, we encourage you to sign in and take a look.

You can also watch our short explainer video about the key features and how to get started on the My FCA page.

From May 2025, your reminder emails for scheduled tasks in Connect and RegData will have a link to My FCA.

Thank you for the feedback so far on My FCA. We are pleased that many of you are finding value from our first release. We continue to work on enhancements to the portal which we will talk more about in future editions.

We are consulting to remove 2 regulatory returns and 1 notification from firms’ schedules and to remove the requirement for firms to provide us with this data.

We welcome feedback on our proposals by 14 May 2025. While this consultation is live, we will not be chasing firms that fail to submit the relevant returns and firms can choose not to submit them. From 16 April 2025, the date the consultation opened, we will not be issuing the late return administrative fee of £250 for either of the 2 regulatory returns.

The consultation forms part of our commitment to being a smarter regulator, reducing firm burden and supporting economic growth.

The latest Regulatory Initiatives Grid is available. It sets out the work currently being taken forward by us and other regulators that affects financial services.

There are 144 initiatives in total. We are leading 31 of these and are involved in another 35 joint initiatives. This includes all our initiatives that are public and expected to have a significant operational impact on the industry.

The Grid also shows the 90 initiatives that have been completed or stopped since the last full Grid was published in November 2023.

It contains detailed information, including expected milestones (like the publication of consultation papers), any changes in timings, the expected impact on firms, and whether the initiative will be of interest to consumers. It is broken down by sector so that firms can quickly identify the initiatives that will affect them.

It focuses on how regulators are supporting the Government’s growth mission and reducing regulatory burden, part of our strategy. Future editions of the Grid will update stakeholders on progress.

The Grid is overseen by the CEO-level Financial Services Regulatory Initiatives Forum. The Forum reviews key trends, sequencing of work and themes. These discussions help strengthen coordination between members.

The Grid is usually published twice a year. It is a key publication for helping industry, government and consumers understand how our strategy is being delivered.

We published a joint FCA/Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) Consultation Paper proposing amendments to the bilateral margin requirements under UK version of the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (UK EMIR).

We are proposing an indefinite exemption from the bilateral margin requirements for single stock equity options and index options to take effect from 4 January 2026.

We and the PRA have also consulted on 2 additional proposals to address operational issues raised by industry, with the aim of making the regime more proportionate for our firms.

We welcome responses to this consultation by 27 June 2025.

FCA-regulated firms should email cp25-5@fca.org.uk.

PRA-regulated firms should email CP5_25@bankofengland.co.uk.

Other respondents should submit responses to both authorities.

We are refreshing the membership of our Sustainable Finance Advisory Committee and seeking expressions of interest to join.

The Sustainable Finance Advisory Committee – formerly known as the ESG Advisory Committee – will continue the good work of the current committee advising the FCA board on emerging sustainability issues.

If you are interested in joining the committee, please send a copy of your CV to the Sustainable Finance Advisory Committee at esgac@fca.org.uk by 9 May 2025.

Following a consultation on proposed changes to the derivates trading obligation and post-trade risk reduction services (CP 24/14), we published a policy statement providing a summary of the feedback received and our response.

It also includes our final rules on the classes of SOFR OIS (secured overnight financing rate overnight index swaps) subject to the derivatives trading obligation (DTO) and the framework for post-trade risk reduction services (PTRRS). This allows investment firms to benefit from various exclusions, including the exemptions from the DTO, best execution and the transparency requirements.

We are proposing reforms to our regime for alternative asset managers, to make it easier for firms to enter the market, grow, compete and innovate.

The more streamlined and proportionate regime will make it easier for firms to operate globally, while encouraging effective risk management. It will uphold market integrity and market confidence by making sure consumers are appropriately protected.

Following from the wider vulnerable consumers review, we published good and poor practice findings in a multi-firm review of how retail banks are treating consumers in vulnerable circumstances, specifically where there has been a bereavement or there is a Power of Attorney in place.

All firms should consider the findings and where they can make improvements.

We have already proposed a simpler and flexible system which is tailored to the UK to replace current rules, introduced across Europe when the UK was in the EU.

In our first Consumer Composite Investments (CCI) consultation we said that we would follow up on draft rules about consequential changes to other Handbook materials and draft transitional provisions or amendments to the transaction costs. We are now consulting on these.

We welcome views through the consultation (add link) about how best to design outcomes-focused regulation that is fit for many years to come. Please respond by 28 May 2025.

We are proposing to streamline the rules on the funds investment firms must hold to absorb losses and maintain financial resilience during periods of stress.

The current regulatory capital rules were designed for banks, making them complex and not tailored to investment firms’ business models. We propose removing the EU-derived rules and to make them clearer and more accessible, reducing the time and resources firms spend interpreting and applying the requirements.

The changes would reduce the volume of legal text by 70%.

The proposals do not change the level of capital firms are required to hold, and we do not expect firms to change their capital arrangements as a result.

Please respond to the Definition of capital for FCA investment firms consultation paper by 12 June 2025.

On 8 April 2025 we published CP25/7 which consults on the rules which enable us to collect fees and levies. This includes proposed changes to:

• How we distribute cost recovery of our annual funding requirement.
• Allocation of the Financial Ombudsman Service’s general levy.
• The levies we collect on behalf of government departments, and
• The Fees Manual of the Handbook.

We have also included a discussion chapter asking firms for views on whether we should change our draft fee-rates modelling approach to enable us to publish our consultation on draft fee-rates earlier.

The consultation closes on 13 May 2025.

This month we published a Multi-firm Review, 'Trading apps: high-level observations'. The publication aims to support new firms and traditional investment brokers wanting to offer these services, to help them understand their existing obligations.

We have also published an Occasional Paper, ‘Playing the market: a behavioural data analysis of digital engagement practices and investment outcomes’. This research looks at how app features, particularly features like notifications and prize draws, influence consumer behaviour.

We urge firms to consider these findings when designing trading apps and improving consumer protection practices.

Under our new strategy, we are establishing a presence in the United States (US) and Asia-Pacific (APAC) for the first time.

In the US, Tash Miah started in April at the British Embassy in Washington, DC. Tash will work closely with the Department for Business and Trade to advance UK-US financial services policy and regulatory cooperation, and support financial firms in the US to navigate UK regulation.

Based in Australia, Camille Blackburn will establish a regional office from July 2025 as the FCA’s director, Asia-Pacific. The role will focus on supporting financial services firms to navigate regulation to enter the UK market or raise capital and provide UK firms with support expanding into the APAC region.

Improving exports and inwards investment is one of the key growth commitments in our letter to the Prime Minister.

Our press release gives more detail.

Last month we advertised a vacancy to chair the Smaller Business Practitioner Panel, an independent statutory body representing the views of small and medium-sized regulated firms.

This is an opportunity to help shape our work at a time of significant change in UK financial services regulation.

Please apply by 11.59pm on Monday, 28 April 2025.

Please see more information on how to apply and further information about the SBPP.

Our news and publications alerts keep you up to date with our press releases, speeches, statements, consultations, guidance, notices and decisions.

Join our virtual Consumer Duty event with KPMG on 8 May.

We will explore key themes, with a focus on small and flexible portfolio firms, including:

• insights on industry progress so far
• latest examples of good practice and areas for improvement across sectors
• how firms should apply the Duty proportionately, based on their size and circumstances
• what our new 5-year strategy means for firms.

Register here.