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🇬🇧United Kingdom · Non-EU

Financial Conduct Authority

FCA · Financial supervisory authority
Londonwww.fca.org.uk
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FY2025/26 · as of 31 March 2026Published figures unless marked

Employees5,510group headcount
Annual budget£783.5M (~€901M)~€901M
Supervised entitiesSee the breakdown belowFY2025/26

Overview

The FCA is Europe's largest financial conduct regulator — 5,510 staff supervising tens of thousands of firms from London, Edinburgh and Leeds, with new outposts in the US and Asia-Pacific. 2025/26 was the first year of its new five-year strategy, and the numbers show the shift to fewer, faster cases: open investigations fell from 188 to 130 while criminal convictions more than tripled to 17. Everything below is the FCA's own data, from its Annual Report and Accounts 2025/26 and its published operating metrics.

Regulated sectors

9
BanksPayment institutionsE-money institutionsCrypto-asset service providersInvestment firmsAsset managersInsurance companiesConsumer lendingSecurities markets

Figures as published by Financial Conduct Authority for FY2025/26. Source: Annual Report and Accounts 2025/26. Data as of 31 March 2026. Supplementary: Enforcement data 2025/26.

Leadership

4
Ashley Alder

Chairsince 2023

Nikhil Rathi

Chief Executivesince 2020

Sarah Pritchard

Deputy Chief Executivesince 2025

Sheree Howard

Executive Director, Authorisations

Full board

Organisation (FY2025/26)

Group headcount
5,510Up from 5,379; as at 31 March 2026
Permanent staff costs
£523.1m (~€612m)+7.1% year on year
International presence
US, Asia-Pacific, SingaporeNew offices opened under the 2025 strategy

Enforcement (FY2025/26)

Final Notices
302024/25: 37
Criminal convictions
172024/25: 5 — fraud, insider dealing, money laundering; two insider-dealing cases drew a combined 11 years' imprisonment
Fines published (calendar 2025)
£124.2m (~€145m)FCA's published running total, excluding court fines; largest single fine: £44.1m (Nationwide) — the FCA's largest since August 2022
Open investigations
130Down from 188 — deliberate shift to fewer, faster cases; over 75% of enforcement work targets financial crime
Warnings about unauthorised firms
2,3292024: 2,240
New intervention cases
265137 outcomes: 124 voluntary, 13 own-initiative

Determination times (Q2 2025/26)

Calendar days from application to decision.

New firm authorisation
72 / 118 / 188Lower quartile / Median / Upper quartile
Variation of permission
41 / 69 / 107Lower quartile / Median / Upper quartile
Change in control
16 / 36 / 65Lower quartile / Median / Upper quartile
Approved persons (SM&CR)
15 / 28 / 43Lower quartile / Median / Upper quartile
Cryptoasset registration (5MLD)
120 / 123 / 131Lower quartile / Median / Upper quartile

Notable 2025/26

International finfluencer week of action (June 2025, with nine partner regulators)
3 arrests, 6 criminal proceedings, 11 warning letters, 650 social-media takedown requests
Enforcement pace
Ten operations reached a public outcome in 16 months or less between July 2024 and March 2026
Consumer tooling
Firm Checker consumer verification tool launched

Key legislation

4
Financial Services and Markets Act 2000

Foundational Act

Financial Services and Markets Act 2023

Post-Brexit rewrite; crypto framework

Money Laundering Regulations 2017

AML register for cryptoasset firms

Payment Services Regulations 2017

PSD2 (UK)

Registers, portals and publications

Application portals

Connect

Recent publications

Annual Report and Accounts 2025/262026-07-09
Data as of 31 March 2026 · Source: www.fca.org.uk (authority website) + ComplyBridge researchActivity Index methodology →