On 8 July 2026, the Financial Conduct Authority announced appointments to its Secondary Markets Advisory Committee for July 2026 to July 2028.1 The committee grows from 25 to 27 members. Its remit spans wholesale secondary markets in equities, fixed income, foreign exchange and commodities, across securities, futures, swaps and options. Its functions: developing reforms improving competition, consumer protection and market integrity; identifying market changes, trends and risks; and providing data and analysis to support policy reform. Jon Relleen, Director of Infrastructure and Exchanges, chairs, with Trading Policy secretariat support. The membership draws from every segment of the wholesale ecosystem.2
Reading the composition
The roster maps who the FCA consults when it writes market structure policy. Venues: LME, ICE Futures Europe, LSEG, Aquis, CBOE Europe, MarketAxess, Tradeweb. Sell side: Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan, Barclays, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs. Buy side: Vanguard, Baillie Gifford, BlackRock, alongside Rokos. Principal trading: Jane Street, Optiver, Citadel; interdealer broking: TP ICAP, BGC; and the wider ecosystem through BP, Bloomberg, Marex, BNY and OSTTRA. The two additional seats extend, rather than alter, the committee's centre of gravity: this is the traditional wholesale market, comprehensively assembled.
The term that matters, and the seat that is empty
The 2026 to 2028 term is not ordinary. It spans the cryptoasset authorisation gateway opening on 30 September 2026, the September 2026 perimeter policy statement, the cryptoasset derivatives consultation, and full regime commencement on 25 October 2027, when UK QCATPs become authorised trading venues and MARC goes live.3 Cryptoassets sit outside the committee's stated remit, and no crypto-native firm holds a seat. Market structure questions rarely respect such boundaries: transparency calibration, venue competition, best execution evidence and surveillance standards developed for traditional venues will shape, by analogy and by staff habit, how the same concepts are supervised on QCATPs. Crypto-native platforms preparing UK authorisation should note where the market-structure conversation happens, and that they are not yet in the room; trade association channels are the available substitute until the committee's remit, or membership, catches up with the perimeter.4
The FCA has seated its wholesale secondary markets advisory body for a two-year term spanning the commencement of the UK cryptoasset regime, drawing members from exchanges, dealers, buy-side firms, market makers and infrastructure providers, chaired by Jon Relleen, and notably including no crypto-native firm.
Notes
1. FCA press release, FCA appoints new members to the Secondary Markets Advisory Committee, 8 July 2026. The committee was established in 2022; each term runs two years.
2. An advisory committee has no decision-making power; its influence runs through its functions, of which providing data and analysis is the most consequential: the evidence base cited in cost benefit analyses is substantially assembled through such bodies.
3. PS26/9 to PS26/13 (30 June 2026) finalised the UK cryptoasset regime under SI 2026/102: applications open 30 September 2026, and the regime, including QCATP authorisation and MARC, commences 25 October 2027. The pending cryptoasset derivatives consultation is squarely a secondary markets question.
4. The pattern has precedent: concepts calibrated in traditional venue policy migrate into adjacent regimes through supervisory practice before any rulebook cross-refers. Firms absent from the calibration inherit its outcomes.
