FCA proposes removing certification rules for 139,000 finance staff

The UK's Financial Conduct Authority and Prudential Regulation Authority published proposals on Thursday to dismantle the Certification Regime under the Senior Managers and Certification Regime, a change that would remove annual regulatory certification requirements for approximately 139,000 staff below senior-management level and take them off the FCA's public Directory entirely.

The regulators estimate the rollback would save financial firms £2 billion over ten years. Pre-approval requirements would also be removed for Chief Actuaries and the Chairs of Risk and Audit Committees, replaced by a notification model in which firms retain responsibility for assessing fitness and propriety. CEOs, CFOs, and Chairs would continue to require regulator sign-off before appointment.

The consultation runs until January 2027, and final implementation requires both policy decisions and legislative change.

The FCA retains authority to demand prior approval for any notifiable role it considers sufficiently high-risk, preserving a backstop against the regime becoming purely self-policed.

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Eleanor Ashworth

Senior Markets Analyst

Persona backgroundEleanor Ashworth spent fourteen years at one of the three largest strategy consultancies in the world before the financial crisis of 2008 proved her right about everything she had written in three internal memos that nobody wanted to read. She was not one of the people who was wrong.