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Financial Lives 2024 survey Sarah Pritchard, executive director supervision, policy and competition (markets) and executive director international On 16 May we published our flagship Financial Lives 2024 survey. Helping consumers navigate their financial lives is a key plank of our strategy. This nationally representative snapshot of UK consumers gives us vital insight, and we also report historic data from previous surveys in 2017, 2020 and 2022. Just under 18,000 adults took part in the survey. We saw positives including fewer unbanked adults and lower levels of digital exclusion. We also saw that consumers who seek debt advice are finding their debts more manageable as a result. However, 1 in 4 adults has low financial resilience, although this figure has not worsened between 2022 and 2024. The Consumer Duty, and our guidance around consumers in vulnerable circumstances, set a clear expectation for firms to deliver good outcomes for consumers and give them support when they need it. We are encouraging consumers to be confident in sharing information with their financial services providers when they have difficulties with their finances, and seek help early by speaking to their firm or a debt adviser. In turn, we expect firms to support borrowers in difficulty.  Even those who are better off could benefit from guidance or advice to support their long-term financial health – whether that’s thinking about their pensions savings and retirement planning or considering whether they could invest some of their cash.  Beyond the headlines, the survey features a wealth of data, covering all key retail financial services sectors. We use this to inform our policy work and monitor outcomes. We hope it’s useful for the whole industry.

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Need to know

Mortgage Rule Review 

We are consulting on steps to simplify mortgage rules, making it easier, faster and cheaper for borrowers to make changes to their mortgage.

We propose to:

• Make it easier to remortgage with a new lender. Currently, lenders undertake a full affordability assessment when taking on a new customer. Our proposals would allow them to do a lighter assessment if the mortgage offered is cheaper than the mortgage the customers can get from their existing lender.
• Make it easier for homeowners to reduce the total cost of their mortgage by reducing the mortgage term – by removing the requirement to do a full affordability assessment when making this kind of variation.
• Reducing the number of circumstances where consumers have to get regulated advice, particularly in lower risk situations. Since 2015, around 97% of new mortgage sales have been advised. Our changes will allow firms more freedom to interact with customers during a sale or mortgage variation so that consumers can get the advice or information they need, when they need it.

Emad Aladhal, director of retail banking, also spoke this month at the Building Societies Association conference, outlining our wider work to review the mortgages market.

We'd like your views on our proposals by 4 June. Please see our news story and consultation paper for how to respond. 

Stripping back insurance rulebook

We have published a consultation paper on Simplifying Insurance Rules. We are asking for feedback on how we can strip outdated or duplicated requirements from our insurance rulebook.

The changes could support lower costs and wider access for the businesses and consumers who rely on insurance to manage risk. 

Among the proposals, we are seeking views on a new definition to identify large commercial insurance customers who should not be captured by our conduct rules – while continuing to protect smaller commercial customers.

We are also proposing further measures that could benefit the insurance market more widely. This includes no longer requiring firms to review the value of their product at least every 12 months. Instead, firms would use each product’s risks and characteristics to decide how often they review them. And we are proposing to remove duplicative reporting requirements and rules on minimum training hours for employees.

We are holding a webinar for insurance firms and their representatives on 4 June. This will be an opportunity to hear from FCA staff, including Director of Insurance Matt Brewis, consider our proposals and ask us questions.

We will also cover how we expect firms to conduct fair value assessments.

Please sign up and submit your questions in advance.

Stablecoins and crypto custody

In the latest milestone in our crypto regulation roadmap, we published a consultation paper on proposals for issuing stablecoins, crypto custody and financial resilience of cryptoasset firms, to support a safe, competitive sector. 

We want to create a safe, sustainable and competitive crypto sector. Alongside the consultation papers, we announced plans to add a specific focus on stablecoins to its innovation services in the coming months.

The proposals follow HM Treasury’s draft legislation published in April 2025. The deadline for feedback is 31 July 2025.

New consumer credit regulatory return

We have introduced a new regulatory return to collect data from consumer credit firms with permission to carry out any of these regulated activities: credit broking, debt adjusting, debt counselling and providing credit information services. This will replace 2 existing returns, with the aim of replacing 4 more in the future.

The changes help streamline our data collection so we only collect what is necessary to effectively supervise firms. This will enable firms to focus on high-value reporting that supports better consumer and market outcomes.

This new data return ensures firms only submit data they need to - supporting our priority of being a smarter regulator. As part of this we have also published flow diagrams to help firms understand how these changes make providing data easier.

Our policy statement gives information on implementation and timelines, and our press release gives more context.

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All Sectors

Updates to requirements, limitations and directions

We are amending and updating around 11,000 requirements, directions or limitations applied to over 9,000 firms.

This follows a review to check the data we hold is still accurate, reflects the current wording we use for requirements, directions and limitations and any changes to legislation and firms’ business models.

We will make small amendments automatically. Where we think we may need to make bigger changes we will contact you and find an efficient way of making the change.

The updates will take place over the next few months. You do not need to take any action unless we get in touch.

AI testing pilot 

We’re asking for views on how our new live AI testing service can help firms adopt safe and responsible AI.

As a new component of our AI Lab, the live testing service will help to fill a testing gap slowing firms’ adoption of AI and give regulatory support to firms who are ready to use consumer or market-facing AI models.

The proposal builds on our commitment to support growth by enabling innovation and ensuring the continued competitiveness of the UK’s world-leading financial services.

We welcome feedback on our proposals by 10 June 2025.

Improving how firms report complaints data

We're consulting on improving how firms report complaints data, including merging 5 returns into 1.

These plans will make it easier for around 10,000 firms that are currently required to report more than 1 return.

It will also help improve the quality of the data so we can spot consumer harm more quickly.

We welcome feedback on our proposals in the consultation paper by 24 July 2025.

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

RegData – we value your feedback

We’re working to reduce regulatory burdens and improve the quality of data we collect from you. As part of this, we’ve added a new feedback option in RegData, our data collection platform.

Following the launch of My FCA, this feature lets you share feedback on FCA form-based data items directly within RegData. Simply use the action bar in the relevant form—editor permission is required.

Please share your feedback to help us improve your user experience.

Pricing Transparency for Consumer-Initiated International Payments

We published good and poor practice for payments firms and retail banks offering consumers international money remittance and cross-border payments. We assessed whether firms were clearly explaining pricing information before consumers started making a transfer.

We found varying levels of pricing transparency across firms’ communications. This can make it challenging for consumers to compare prices and make better-informed decisions.

Firms should review the good and poor practice and make sure consumers understand the cost of the transfer.

FCA places restrictions on CFD firm

We placed restrictions on Direct Trading Technologies (DTT), preventing it from carrying out regulated activities and restricting access to its assets.

DTT is failing, or likely to fail, to meet the standards required of an authorised firm. This includes a lack of systems and controls to prevent financial crime, poor governance and a failure to cooperate openly with us.

Investment research

We have finalised rules allowing pooled investment funds greater freedom in paying for investment research.

These new rules help UK markets to be more efficient to support growth. High-quality, easily accessible investment research is crucial for fund managers to make informed investment decisions for the benefit of investors

Review into smaller asset management firms

Our review of smaller asset managers and alternatives business models found most firms are meeting regulatory expectations.

The review aims to help new market entrants, smaller firms and growing organisations benchmark good risk management practices and better understand regulatory expectations. The findings help firms ensure customers can invest confidently, by giving firms examples of good practice and highlighting where some need to improve.

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Data

Complaints

We have published the most recent data on the volume of complaints reported by firms during the second half (H2) of 2024. We use this data to help assess how well firms are treating their customers and how their performance changes over time.

Key findings include:

• In 2024 H2, financial services firms received 1.78m complaints, a 4.3% decrease from 2024 H1 (1.86m).
• All product groups saw a decrease in their complaint numbers.

Appointed representatives data

We present data on the appointed representatives population and financial services activity. We update this data every 6 months.

The appointed representatives (AR) regime is crucial for consumer interaction with financial services. We are focused on strengthening principal firm oversight of ARs.

This data helps us understand the reasons for appointing ARs, the nature of their business activities and expected revenue from both regulated and unregulated activities. It informs our decisions and helps prioritise supervision to effectively tackle potential risks to consumers and markets.

Whistleblowing quarterly data 2025 Q1

Our latest data shows we received 281 new whistleblowing reports, containing 752 allegations in total between January to March 2025.

We closed 468 whistleblowing reports, this included:

• Significant action to manage harm in 12 reports (2.6%) – this may include enforcement action, a section 166 skilled person report or restricting a firm’s permissions or an individual’s approval.
• Action to reduce harm in 192 reports (41%) – this may include writing to or visiting a firm, asking a firm for information or asking a firm to attest to complying with our rules.
• 213 reports (45.5%) informing our work, including harm prevention, but no direct action.

Authorisations Operating Service Metrics 2024/25 Q4

Our latest data shows we determined 99.1% of authorisation applications within statutory deadlines in Q4.

We are continuing to make it quicker and easier to apply for authorisation, while maintaining high standards to protect customers and strengthen the reputation of the UK market.

Information request to the Adviser & Intermediaries sector

We will shortly be sending out an information request for firms in the Adviser & Intermediaries sector.

As part of aiming to be a smarter regulator, we want to minimise the reporting burden on firms.

The sector is made up of about 5,000 firms who play a vital role in helping consumers make complex financial decisions. The sector currently supports 4.4 million consumers paying for financial advice.

We want to work with firms to make sure consumers receive consistently good outcomes from a sector which is sustainable and well placed for the future. We will be contacting firms with more details about the information request and next steps.

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News and publication alerts

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Open Consultations

Have your say - respond to our open consultations and discussions:

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Speeches, Events & Blogs

Speech: Our agenda to combat market abuse

Therese Chambers, joint executive director of enforcement and market oversight, delivered a speech on ‘Our agenda to combat market abuse’ at City and Financial Global's Market Abuse and Market Manipulation Summit.

Speech: AI for growth – how the FCA can help

Jessica Rusu, FCA chief data, information and intelligence officer delivered a speech on ‘AI for growth – how the FCA can help’ at the Innovate Finance Global Summit (IFGS) 2025.

Speech: Global responses to digital asset regulation

Jessica Rusu, FCA chief data, information and intelligence officer, delivered a speech on ‘Global responses to digital asset regulation’ at TheCityUK International Conference 2025.

Speech: Mortgage reform: supporting home ownership in the UK

Emad Aladhal, director of retail banking, delivered a speech on ‘Mortgage reform: supporting home ownership in the UK’ at the Building Societies Association Annual Conference.

Speech: Strengthening the UK-China financial partnership

Ashley Alder, FCA chair, delivered a speech on ‘Strengthening the UK-China financial partnership’ at Caixin Media's London Atlantic Dialogue event.

Blog: Open Finance sprint outcomes

Simone Plances, manager, innovation, published a blog reflecting on our recent Open Finance Sprint and map a future of financial services led by adaptability, inclusivity and a user–driven approach.

See the latest speeches from our executive team and our latest events

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