FCA Business Plan 2024/25

The FCA has published its Business Plan for 2024/25, setting out an ambitious programme of work for the final year of its 3-year strategy to achieve better outcomes for consumers and markets. Please find a summary below.

For the full update please visit: Business Plan 2024/25 | FCA,

The Business Plan details the work the FCA will do over the next 12 months to help deliver the commitments in their ‘3-year Strategy’:

Operational objectives and focus for 2024/5:

• Protecting consumers
• Protecting the integrity of the UK financial system
• Promoting effective competition in the interests of consumers
• Secondary objective: to facilitate the international competitiveness of the UK economy and its growth in the medium to long term, subject to alignment with international standards.
• FCA workforce
• FCA operational resilience

The FCA’s 3-year Strategy sets out how they will achieve these objectives, focusing on:

• Reducing and preventing serious harm
• Setting and testing higher standards
• Promoting competition and positive change

The challenges for the year ahead

• Higher interest rates and persistent inflation
• Global financial risks
• Geopolitical risks

13 public commitments (with a focus on the first 3)

1. Reducing and preventing financial crime
2. Putting consumers’ needs first
3. Strengthening the UK’s position in global wholesale markets
4. Preparing financial services for the future
5. Dealing with Problem Firms
6. Taking assertive action on market abuse
7. Reducing harm from firm failure
8. ESG priorities
9. Shaping digital markets to achieve good outcomes
10. Improving the redress framework
11. Enabling consumers to help themselves
12. Minimising the impact of operational disruptions
13. Improving oversight of Appoint Representatives

Annual Budget

FCA’s annual budget is driven by:  

• the cost of core operating activities (ongoing regulatory activity, ORA), primarily workforce 
• the exceptional projects they undertake, and
• capital expenditure to develop technology and information systems, and new regulatory and operational requirements

Annual Funding Requirement:

In 2024/2025, the FCA’s annual funding requirement (AFR) is £755.0m, an increase of 10.7%. The funding includes:

• ongoing regulatory activities (ORA) budget, and
• the costs of exceptional projects needed to recover for changes to regulated activities and new initiatives

The actual fees collected will reflect the AFR net of rebates from financial penalties collected (forecast at £35.1m).

The ORA budget

The ORA budget is a significant part of ensuring the FCA meet the commitments in the Business Plan and continue delivery of their 3-year strategy. The budget shows the base ORA budget increasing by 8.7% (£58.1m). The ORA budget also includes new charges to reflect changes to responsibilities for Consumer Duty and the Financial Promotions Regime. The addition of these gives a rebased ORA budget of £729.1m, representing an overall 9.7% increase on last year.

Exceptional projects

The FCA raise fees for exceptional projects to extend their regulatory remit and implement government initiatives and legislation. This helps promote innovation and competition through their regulatory work. It enables them to reduce harm to consumers and help them make more informed choices.

• Advice Guidance Boundary Review
• Access to cash
• Open Banking/Open Finance
• Credit Information Market Study Interim Working Group
• Smarter Regulatory Framework
• InvestSmart
• Cryptoassets
• Funeral Plans
• Financial Promotions and Pensions Dashboard

Capital expenditure

The FCA’s capital expenditure budget reflects the ongoing delivery of IT systems and infrastructure development and refresh. Capital expenditure is largely funded through the ORA depreciation charge.

For the full update please visit: Business Plan 2024/25 | FCA

Author: Alex Hackett, Business Development Manager

Alex a Business Development Manager and a member of the investment funds team and is involved in portfolio construction, regulatory reporting, trade surveillance and monitoring.