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Financial Conduct Authority
FCA · Financial supervisory authorityProlific
Employees
5,510
· group headcountFY2025/26
Annual budget
£783.5M (~€901M)
FY2025/26 · Annual Funding Requirement
Supervised entities
~42,000
2024
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
Leadership
- Ashley AlderChair · since 2023
- Nikhil RathiChief Executive · since 2020
- Sarah PritchardDeputy Chief Executive · since 2025
- Sheree HowardExecutive Director, Authorisations
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.
Organisation (FY2025/26)
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Group headcount | 5,510 Up from 5,379; as at 31 March 2026 |
| Permanent staff costs | £523.1m (~€612m) +7.1% year on year |
| International presence | US, Asia-Pacific, Singapore New offices opened under the 2025 strategy |
Enforcement (FY2025/26)
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Final Notices | 30 2024/25: 37 |
| Criminal convictions | 17 2024/25: 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 | 130 Down from 188 — deliberate shift to fewer, faster cases; over 75% of enforcement work targets financial crime |
| Warnings about unauthorised firms | 2,329 2024: 2,240 |
| New intervention cases | 265 137 outcomes: 124 voluntary, 13 own-initiative |
Determination times (Q2 2025/26)
Calendar days from application to decision.
| Item | Lower quartile | Median | Upper quartile |
|---|---|---|---|
| New firm authorisation | 72 | 118 | 188 |
| Variation of permission | 41 | 69 | 107 |
| Change in control | 16 | 36 | 65 |
| Approved persons (SM&CR) | 15 | 28 | 43 |
| Cryptoasset registration (5MLD) | 120 | 123 | 131 |
Notable 2025/26
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| 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
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)
Public registers
Application portals
Recent publications
- Annual Report and Accounts 2025/26
2026-07-09