The UK regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), has published a series of documents outlining the outcomes it aims to achieve for consumers, markets, and the national economy over the next five years, including specific metrics and targets against which its performance will be measured.
Inclusions in this report are highly relevant to a wide range of stakeholders, as it provides a framework for tracking progress, alongside insights into the regulatory objectives and priorities that will have the greatest influence in the coming years.
Thornbridge Investment Management, a long-established and well-regarded provider of services such as hosted fund management and regulatory umbrella support, explains the key information and what it means for consumers and financial services businesses.
How to Interpret and Understand the FCA’s Outcomes and Metrics Reporting
The regulatory body has set four strategic ‘themes’, such as supporting growth, and then identified between two and four ideal outcomes it wants to deliver, alongside the metrics or data points it expects to use to measure them.
For the 2025 to 2030 period, those themes are: a smarter, more efficient, and effective regulator; supporting growth; helping consumers navigate their financial lives; and fighting financial crime.
Within each theme, there is a clearly explained list of planned outcomes, including the metrics that will quantify success or progress and baseline values that show the current position.
This ensures that anybody accessing the report can see immediately what the FCA wants to achieve, how it will determine if those outcomes have been reached, and the methods it will use to monitor progress – alongside historical metrics shown in user-friendly graphs that provide further context.
The FCA’s Strategic Themes for the Period From 2025 to 2030
Although the role of the financial services regulator is often misinterpreted as solely enforcement and supervision, the organisation also has several strategic objectives it must uphold. These include consumer protection, safeguarding the UK’s financial systems, and ensuring fair and effective competition.
Those functions are determined by Parliament, so although the FCA is an independent body, it is also required to set out strategies that show where efforts and resources will be allocated as a priority. It also forecasts challenges and possible future reforms that enable the organisation to be proactive rather than reactive when problems emerge.
We’ve summarised each of those four strategic aims below and shared some of the purposes behind them.
Smarter Regulation
Efficiency and effectiveness are priority one, setting out ways that the FCA can adopt technologies and improve capacity to facilitate greater innovation and economic investment. The FCA has committed to maintaining high levels of compliance and continuing to deliver growth improvements in year one – the latter of which is also theme two.
It intends to monitor progress through the FCA and Practitioner Panel surveys, starting from a baseline in which the regulator is perceived as effective by 6.8 out of 10 fixed-portfolio firms and 7.2 out of 10 flexible-portfolio firms.
In real-world terms, this means the sector can expect prompter reactions from the FCA, whether authorised firms and individuals waiting for responses to enquiries or processing times for permission requests.
Supporting Growth
The next emphasis is on ensuring that the financial services industry thrives and continues to contribute to the national GDP, with targets to increase competitiveness and drive improvements in productivity and innovation.
With data showing the UK as the 2nd-ranked global financial centre and the 2nd-highest-performing in fintech, the regulator wants to sustain this position. It also expects to enhance opportunities for UK providers to compete with their international counterparts and increase the number of applications for innovation services and pre-application submissions.
Currently, the UK financial services space ‘exports’ business worth £120,342 million per year, based on 2023 figures, and firms raised £15.7 billion in capital in 2024, both of which the FCA hopes to see improve.
Navigating Financial Services
Part of the FCA’s main remit is protecting consumers, and it is no surprise that helping individuals and families better manage their finances is one of the strategic aims, with comments about the importance of safe investment, savings, and proper retirement planning.
The regulator wants to see a larger proportion of consumers holding everyday accounts, pension funds, insurance products, and savings accounts, while also ensuring that the 56% of people who have £10,000 or more in investable assets and who hold mainstream investments grow.
In addition, the FCA wants to track increases in the number of consumers who say they are satisfied with the services they’ve received from financial firms, with 7.7 out of 10 stating this is the case.
Combatting Financial Crime
Enforcements and investigations into regulatory breaches, criminality, and fraud are a prevalent focus, and this priority has carried over from the previous FCA strategy into its plans for 2025 to 2030.
The organisation has thus far recorded a 7.6% reduction in investment fraud victims but a 5.1% increase in losses, both of which it hopes to improve in the coming years. It is also focusing on tackling the rapid rise of push payment, or APP fraud, aiming to build on the 20% reduction in cases and 2% reduction in losses achieved from 2023 to 2024.
Further traceable metrics will examine the ‘market cleanliness’ status, measured by the FCA and currently rated at 37.8%, while lowering the 5.6% abnormal trading volume and the 4.1% potentially anomalous trading ratio.
Finally, the regulator intends to continue working to prevent money laundering, with the caveat that no current measure enables the FCA to assess this accurately.
The Relevance of the FCA’s Strategic Plans Over the Next Five Years
For regulated firms and those planning to apply for authorisation, understanding how the FCA is operating and where it is investing additional resources allows businesses to set clear benchmarks, understand what they should be working towards, and grasp the regulator’s definition of positive consumer outcomes.
Businesses can also incorporate key strategies into their own planning, looking at where they can contribute to overarching objectives and how they can meet regulatory goals while also providing quality services and support to their customers.
Full details are available on the FCA Outcome and Metrics 2025 to 2030 pages on the fca.org.uk website.
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About Thornbridge Investment Management
We offer hosted fund management & regulatory hosting to appointed representatives. Based in the City of London, we provide outsourced solutions to investment firms and individuals under our regulatory umbrella. Our areas of focus are fund advisory, investment advisory and distribution. Thornbridge is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN:713859).
