On 25 September 2025, Lucy Castledine, Director of Consumer Investments at the UK Financial Conduct Authority (UK FCA), set out the regulator’s five-year strategy at the PIMFA Compliance Conference. She confirmed four priorities that will shape the regulatory landscape for 2025 and beyond: supporting growth, being a smarter regulator, embedding Consumer Duty, and tackling financial crime.
UK FCA’s Four Priorities for 2025
Supporting Growth and Consumer Duty
The UK FCA reaffirmed its support for the UK government’s Mansion House reforms and acknowledged concerns about the impact of Consumer Duty on wholesale firms. Castledine confirmed that the UK FCA is preparing a response to industry feedback to ensure rules remain proportionate.
On consumer outcomes, she highlighted persistent challenges: only 9% of UK consumers currently access financial advice, 7 million adults hold over £10,000 in cash savings without investing, and 15 million people are not saving enough for retirement. To address this, the UK FCA has launched a consultation on targeted support, with a closing date of 16 October 2025, alongside forthcoming proposals on simplified advice and ongoing advice services in early 2026.
Smarter Regulation and Industry Engagement
The UK FCA is reducing unnecessary reporting burdens. Through consultation papers in 2025, the regulator has already decommissioned five data returns and reduced the frequency of others, eliminating 20,000 submissions annually. Castledine explained: “We are making sure any burdensome tasks that might not still be appropriate are scrapped.”
At the same time, the FCA has launched an AI Lab and continues to expand use of regulatory sandboxes to encourage responsible innovation.
Consumer Duty in Practice
Two years after its implementation, Consumer Duty has changed firm behaviour, reducing fees on cash holdings, clarifying charging structures, and lowering upheld complaints on unsuitable advice and mis-selling (down from 39% in 2022 to 26% in 2024). Castledine stressed that embedding the Duty into firm culture remains a key FCA priority.
Tackling Financial Crime and Online Harms
The UK FCA is intensifying action against financial crime, including enforcement against finfluencers unlawfully promoting financial products on social media. Castledine noted that the UK FCA has already launched criminal prosecutions against nine unlawful finfluencers in 2024 and charged a further three in 2025.
She warned that online harms such as deep fake scams and “phoenixing” accounts remain a threat: “We urgently need social media platforms to step up and stop this illegal content at source.”
(Source: https://www.fca.org.uk/news/speeches/regulatory-perspective-and-priorities-2025)
