RegIntel

At a glance

In a speech on 20 October 2026, FCA Deputy Chief Executive Sarah Pritchard described the FCA’s strategic approach to reform and its priorities, including fighting financial crime. She highlighted rising UK investment fraud losses, consumer scam-prevention work and findings from the FCA’s review of financial-crime controls in asset management and alternatives, including scope to improve controls in higher-risk areas such as private markets. She encouraged firms to tailor controls to risk and share intelligence early. The speech also referred to consultations and future work, but does not itself introduce binding requirements.

Potential impact on a UK retail bank

No new obligation for a UK retail bank is established by this speech. Its direct focus is investment firms and asset management, so the FCA review findings are not automatically applicable to retail banking. The discussion of investment scams and risk-based financial-crime controls is indirectly relevant to a bank’s fraud and financial-crime risk management, but the speech does not specify new controls or procedures for banks.

Key obligations or expectations

None identified.

Suggested next steps

• Share the speech with relevant fraud and financial-crime teams for awareness.
• Consider whether its scam-prevention and risk-based control themes reveal any relevant gaps in existing bank controls.
• Review the FCA asset-management findings only to the extent that their lessons are transferable to the bank’s activities; do not treat them as new retail-bank requirements.

Jurisdiction

United Kingdom