A Smarter, Lighter-Touch FCA? A Round-Up of the Regulator’s Most Positive Changes in 2025
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The FCA is not usually accused of moving quickly, lightly or pragmatically. Yet 2025 has marked a noticeable shift in tone and substance. Across capital markets, consumer finance, authorisation processes and financial crime, the regulator has made a concerted effort to support growth while sharpening supervision where it matters.
This is not deregulation. It is something more interesting: selective simplification paired with targeted intervention.
Here is what changed in 2025, and why it matters.
1. Supporting Growth and Innovation Without Losing Control
The FCA’s most eye-catching move was the launch of PISCES in June 2025. The new Private Intermittent Securities and Capital Exchange System creates a regulated venue for trading shares in high-growth private companies before they reach public markets. For scale-ups, investors and employees alike, this fills a long-standing gap between venture capital and IPOs. It is a rare example of the FCA creating new market infrastructure rather than merely supervising existing ones.
Alongside this, the regulator continued the unglamorous but necessary work of regulatory simplification. The ongoing review of the Senior Managers and Certification Regime signals an acceptance that governance frameworks should protect consumers without suffocating firms under layers of process. The direction of travel is clear: fewer duplicative obligations, more focus on accountability that actually works.
Innovation has also been encouraged through the Digital Securities Sandbox, launched with the Bank of England. This allows firms to test tokenisation, distributed ledger technology and new settlement models in a controlled environment. Rather than waiting for global standards to crystallise, the UK is positioning itself as a place where innovation can happen safely and visibly.
Perhaps most telling is the FCA’s decision to establish a permanent presence in the US and Asia-Pacific. This is not symbolism. It reflects a strategic recognition that regulatory credibility now travels internationally and that inward investment depends on global engagement, not domestic introspection.
2. Consumer Protection With a Lighter Hand on the Controls
On the consumer side, the FCA has focused on outcomes rather than rule-writing.
In mortgages, the regulator reminded lenders that existing rules already allow flexibility, particularly for first-time buyers and those with complex income profiles. Rather than rewriting the handbook, the FCA chose to remove friction by clarifying expectations. It is a subtle but important distinction.
The Consumer Duty has continued to bed in, moving from theory to supervision. The emphasis in 2025 has been on fair value, suitability and customer support, with the FCA reviewing real-world outcomes rather than policy wording. For firms, the message is clear: documentation alone will not suffice, but neither will box-ticking.
Investment disclosures have also been refreshed. The move away from rigid, prescriptive templates recognises that disclosure only works if consumers actually read and understand it. Firms are being given more freedom, and more responsibility, to communicate risk and return in a way that makes sense.
3. A Smarter Regulator, Not Just a Bigger One
Internally, the FCA has made progress in modernising how it operates.
The rollout of My FCA represents a genuine attempt to digitise authorisations, notifications and ongoing regulatory tasks. For firms, this reduces friction, improves transparency and removes some of the administrative theatre that has historically accompanied regulatory interaction.
Supervision has also become more data-led. The FCA is investing in intelligence capabilities that allow it to spot harm earlier and intervene more precisely. The shift is away from broad-brush supervision and toward targeted action against the highest-risk firms and behaviours.
That focus is particularly evident in financial crime. In 2025, the FCA intensified its use of data to detect suspicious activity, strengthened intelligence-sharing with law enforcement and moved more quickly to disrupt criminal behaviour inside regulated firms. This is not about casting a wider net; it is about pulling harder where it counts.
The Bigger Picture
Taken together, these changes suggest a regulator that is becoming more confident in its role.
The FCA of 2025 is less interested in procedural compliance for its own sake and more focused on whether markets function, consumers are treated fairly and bad actors are stopped quickly. Growth and protection are no longer framed as opposites, but as complementary goals.
For firms that are well-governed, outcomes-focused and prepared to engage constructively, this is a positive environment. For those relying on opacity, inertia or regulatory fatigue, it is becoming a much less comfortable place to operate.
In regulatory terms, that is probably exactly the point.
