News

Mark Zuckerberg said Meta intends to sell for the first time AI tools to other companies

The Federal Reserve's decision, which was broadly expected, means rates remain between the 3.5% and 3.75%.

Low-income households will benefit from blackberries being collected, a community group says.

Security fears saw CAF Bank, which serves 14,000 UK charities, suspend its online banking portal.

BBC business reporter Dearbail Jordan explains how it works from inside the Bank of England.

Think of the last time you made a payment, transferred money, used a banking app or logged on to online financial services. Did you give much thought to the infrastructure that makes those essential everyday transactions possible?Let’s be honest, you probably didn’t. Most people don’t – until something goes wrong.Financial services rely on a network of providers working behind the scenes – including technology, data and operational service providers.These are so important to the resilience of the financial system that the government granted us powers to implement a new oversight regime, and has now designated the first critical third parties (CTPs).That means, the Bank of England, PRA and FCA will together directly oversee these providers, with a targeted, proportionate focus on ensuring the services they provide to UK financial firms and financial market infrastructures (FMIs) are resilient.Our oversight aims to address system level risks, where many firms rely on the same services from common service providers. And improve coordination and information-sharing across the sector, particularly during major incidents. This complements the existing rules in place for regulated firms to manage the risks they individually face.Operational resilience has evolvedThe primary focus of our operational resilience regulatory framework has been on the ability of individual firms to prevent, respond to and recover from disruption to maintain financial stability and confidence – including from risks arising from their outsourcing and third party arrangements.That remains vital.What's changed is the environment in which those firms operate.Banks, insurers, payment firms and FMIs increasingly rely on a relatively small number of common third party service providers. These may be cloud providers, technology firms, data providers or other specialist service providers.The benefits of this approach are obvious: it can support innovation, boost efficiency, help firms improve the services they offer to millions of consumers and businesses, and contributes to the competitiveness and growth of UK financial services.But what happens if there’s a failure or disruption to the services that one of these third parties offer?Recent events have demonstrated how interconnected such modern services have become. The CrowdStrike outage in 2024 affected a wide range of organisations around the world, while cyber incidents affecting retailers such as Marks & Spencer and Jaguar Land Rover showed how disruption can quickly extend beyond a single organisation.These incidents starkly illustrate how operational disruption at one provider can affect many organisations simultaneously, including financial services.Taking a system-wide viewHaving more visibility across the system is becoming increasingly important, as the financial services landscape has changed. The numbers speak for themselves.In 2025, 27% of incidents reported to the FCA by firms were attributed to a third party issue, and 37% of those were cyber-related.Operational resilience can't solely be about understanding risks within individual firms. It is also about understanding how disruption at commonly used critical service providers could affect the wider system.The CTP regime adds this essential system-wide perspective. It’s not about replacing firms' responsibilities for managing their own operational resilience and third party arrangements. Nor is it about regulating every third party provider that firms use.Put simply, it's about making sure our oversight reflects the way the system actually works today.What this means in practiceThis regime can’t and won’t end all disruptions. But it is designed to make a practical difference, particularly when disruption occurs.For critical third parties, the expectations are clear. They must identify and manage risks relating to the critical services they provide. They need to test and improve their resilience arrangements, and engage openly with regulators and firms, especially during incidents.The regime also aims to promote greater transparency and stronger communication between critical third parties and their UK financial services clients, including through activities such as joint testing exercises and the sharing of self-assessments where appropriate.For firms, the regime should support better visibility of risks and improved communication during major incidents. When many firms are affected by the same disruption, timely information and effective coordination become even more important.And for consumers and businesses, the services they rely on every day should be more resilient to disruption and, where disruption does occur, be restored quickly.No framework can eliminate operational incidents entirely. But strengthening resilience across the wider system that supports financial services can help reduce the likelihood that disruption escalates or spreads unnecessarily.Building resilience togetherOne of the clearest lessons from recent years is that the operational resilience of the financial system is a shared mission. A more resilient system helps create the conditions for firms to innovate, invest and grow with confidence.Firms, regulators and third party providers all play an important role in maintaining the services that consumers, businesses and markets rely upon. The CTP regime reflects our connected reality. It recognises how the financial system operates today and ensures our approach to resilience evolves, so that the financial system can continue to safely serve businesses and consumers now and in the future.As the regime is now live, firms should continue to consider how they identify, test and manage dependencies on critical services. Designated CTPs should engage openly with regulators and firms, including through testing and information-sharing.You can find more information on critical third parties on the FCA and PRA’s website:Critical Third Parties: Strengthening UK Financial Services | FCA.Critical Third Parties (CTPs) | Bank of England.

Victims of convicted fraudster John Burford are set to recover the majority of the money they invested after the FCA obtained a confiscation order against him. In September 2025 Mr Burford, 86, was sentenced to 2 years in prison for defrauding over 100 investors out of £1m.He offered trade alerts and investment opportunities in managed 'funds', despite lacking FCA authorisation. The FCA found he repeatedly misled investors about fund performance, concealed losses and used their money for personal gain, including buying a property.At a hearing at Southwark Crown Court on 27 July 2026, Mr Burford was ordered to pay £655,951.40. This amount represents the total value of assets the court determined were available to be recovered. The funds will be returned directly to victims of his crimes.Together with payments previously made by Mr Burford to investors, nearly all the money, an estimated 99%, originally invested by the approximately 70 known victims will have been returned.Steve Smart, executive director of enforcement and market oversight at the FCA, said: 'Mr Burford scammed investors to fund his own lavish lifestyle. Clawing back stolen money from fraudsters and returning it to victims sends a clear message that crime doesn’t pay.'If Mr Burford does not pay the confiscation order within 3 months, he faces a default prison sentence of up to 5 years.The confiscation proceedings form part of the FCA’s ongoing work to deprive criminals of the proceeds of their crimes and get money back for fraud victims.Notes to editorsJohn Charles Burford’s date of birth is 23 February 1940.John Burford sentenced to 2 years in prison for £1 million investment fraud.Confiscation orders are made under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 and require offenders to repay the benefit they gained from criminal conduct or the value of their available assets, whichever is lower.Consumers are encouraged to use FCA Firm Checker to check if firms are authorised for the investments being offered.The FCA enables a fair and thriving financial services market for the good of consumers and the economy. Find out more about the FCA.

The FCA and Bank of England (Bank) have appointed members to their Transaction and Post-trade Reporting Harmonisation Taskforce. The taskforce will inform our long-term approach to harmonising transaction and post-trade reporting requirements across UK Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation (UK MiFIR), UK European Market Infrastructure Regulation (UK EMIR) and UK Securities Financing Transactions Regulation (UK SFTR).The taskforce comprises 3 separate working groups: a main Policy working group, supported by a Strategy working group and an Architecture working group. The objectives of the working groups were set out in the terms of reference.The Policy working group is chaired by Helen Packard (head of market oversight data & intelligence at FCA) and Julia Giese (head of financial markets infrastructure analytics at the Bank). The members of the Policy working group are:Giulia Pecce (head of secondary capital markets & wholesale investor protection at AFME)Adam Jacobs-Dean (managing director, global head of markets, governance and innovation at AIMA)Andy Leonard (regulatory reporting lead SME at Barclays Bank PLC)Hussain Abdullah (director, data & regulatory operations at Citigroup)Karen Stretch (partner at Dechert LLP)Emma Kalliomaki (managing director at ANNA & DSB)Paul Sedgwick (head of DDRL at DTCC)John Graham (senior director of regulation at Futures Industry Association)Greg Stevens (reporting operations director at ICE Futures Europe)Andrew Bayley (senior director, regulatory reporting transformation at ISDA)Tony Holland (director of market practice & regulatory reporting at ISLA)Stuart Cosgrave (operations director at J.P. Morgan Chase)Tim Hartley (global head of SME team & director, EMIR reporting at Kaizen Reporting Ltd)Zach Johnson (director at Kroll)Mark Burnal (managing director, head of fund regulatory reporting and infrastructure at Man Group)Ayo Fashina (executive director, shared services compliance at Morgan Stanley)Rav Saidha (director at Retail Derivative Forum)Will Williams (director, regulatory services at RBC Capital Markets)Rajan Mawkin (senior manager, compliance advisory, credit & equities at TP ICAP Group)James Southwick (trade & transaction reporting senior specialist at Vanguard Asset Management Ltd)Richard Young (industry affairs, regulation and symbology strategist at Bloomberg LP)The Strategy working group is chaired by Dominic Holland (director, enforcement & market oversight and wholesale sell side at FCA) and Nicholas Butt (head of market based finance at the Bank). The members of the Strategy working group are:Adam Conn (director, head of trading at Baillie Gifford Overseas Ltd)Alison Vickers (global head of trade and transaction reporting at BlackRock)Michelle Bedwin (group chief compliance officer at Capula Investment Management)Tanuja Sharma (chief compliance officer, EMEA at Citadel & Citadel Securities)Dawd Haque (market initiatives, regulatory transformation and strategy at Deutsche Bank)Mike Hsu (advisor, speaker, former acting comptroller of the currency at Independent)Luke Taylor (managing director, global banking and markets head of regulatory reporting at Goldman Sachs International)Suzanne Calcagno (global head of regulatory response and oversight, MSS operations at HSBC Bank Plc)Jonathan Armitage (head of regulatory reporting at LCH)Susan Heinrich (EMEA head of non-financial regulatory reporting at Macquarie Group Ltd)Gary Chia-Hsing Li (head of regulatory affairs, EMEA & APAC at MarketAxess)Sana Houari (head of UK compliance, technology and operations at Societe Generale)Dan Chambers (head of regulatory operations at Standard Chartered)Uwe Hillnhütter (regulatory affairs at Tradeweb Europe)Karen Miles (head of non-core legacy regulatory services at UBS)The Architecture working group is chaired by Richard Cutress (manager, data engineering & technology at FCA), Khalid Ledgister (manager, regulatory, business, enterprise & technical architecture team at FCA) and John Aveson (senior data scientist, financial market infrastructure data team at Bank). The members of the Architecture working group are:Andy Hughes (head of technical services at Derivatives Service Bureau)Mihir Trivedi (head of global regulatory change at Deutsche Bank)Alexander McDonald (CEO at EVIA)Eric Odotei (group head of regulatory reporting at Finalto Group)Stephen Mogie (director, business intelligence & regulatory reporting at ICE Clear Europe)Zeynep Shields (global regulatory reporting product owner at J.P. Morgan Asset Management)Michelle Zak (founder & CEO at Qomply)Christopher Hall (head of operations, technology AI strategy at Morgan Stanley)Miguel Munoz Royo (domain architect at SIX Group)Ashish Karandikar (director, regulatory change management at CIBC Capital Markets)Sumeet Agarwal (global lead of trade and transaction reporting technology at Citadel Securities)Pierre Khemdoudi (CEO & co-founder at Gentek AI)Catherine Ahnoff (product director, LSEG regulatory reporting at London Stock Exchange Group)Leo Labeis (founder & CEO at REGnosys)The working groups are supported by the Transaction & Position Reporting Team at the FCA and the Financial Market Infrastructure Data Team at the Bank.Members have been appointed in a personal capacity. Some of the firms listed above are authorised and/or regulated by the Bank, the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) and/or the FCA. Please see theFinancial Services Registerfor further details.

The Consumer Duty was designed to ensure firms were focussed on the outcomes that matter to their customers. Understanding the actual experiences of people and identifying potential harm are essential to delivering these improvements. So outcomes monitoring is at the heart of helping consumers to better navigate their financial lives.Understanding these outcomes is about more than collecting data or producing reports. It helps firms identify where customers may be struggling, spot emerging risks and take action before harm occurs. Doing this well helps build consumer trust in the firms and products that they engage with. This is why, over the past year, we’ve looked closely at how firms are approaching outcomes monitoring.Monitoring customer outcomes: what good practice looks likeOur review found that the strongest approaches were structured, evidence-based and focused on using information to identify risks.Firms that were most effective did not simply collect management information; they used it to understand what was happening across the customer journey, challenge performance and drive improvements for consumers. They understood that every part of the customer journey gives an important signal.But some firms need to do more to make monitoring proactive and outcomes-focused, demonstrate how information drives action and test whether interventions are effective.Building frameworks that drive better outcomesThe strongest firms had clear monitoring frameworks that defined what good outcomes looked like in practice and linked those to different stages of the customer journey.Rather than relying on broad statements or high-level metrics, they translated customer outcomes into measurable indicators and regularly reviewed whether they worked. Importantly, these firms could demonstrate a clear link between the information they collected, the decisions they made and the actions they took.We saw proportionate examples from smaller firms. Some identified a small number of key points where customers were more likely to experience harm, using existing indicators to assess whether customers were receiving good outcomes. This shows that firms do not need complex systems or large teams to monitor outcomes effectively, provided their approach is clear, risk-based and linked to action.But some firms’ monitoring frameworks were not sufficiently focused on customer outcomes or the risks of harm. They relied on high-level monitoring without a clear structure for identifying poor outcomes, understanding their causes or taking appropriate action.Using data to strengthen monitoring and supportThe firms with stronger approaches produced clear evidence that analysis helped to improve customer outcomes. They used data and management information to identify risks, make decisions and test whether interventions were improving outcomes. Some used indicators and thresholds to identify foreseeable harm, including customer vulnerability, unsuitable applications or financial risk.But there are still areas for improvement in how firms use and evidence management information.Some firms relied on reactive or poorly defined indicators, lacked clear audit trails, and could not demonstrate how data was used to identify emerging risks or assess customer outcomes. Firms should be able to show a clear link between management information, decision-making and improvements in outcomes. This includes explaining why metrics and tolerances were chosen and whether actions have been tested and are effective in reducing customer harm or friction.Strengthen approach to third parties and distribution chainsCustomers experience a product or service as a whole. They are unlikely to distinguish between the firms involved in delivering it.That's why effective arrangements with third parties and distribution partners remain important. Firms should understand the outcomes customers are experiencing, and get relevant information from third parties and distribution partners where needed.We've seen positive examples of firms using management information, regular reviews and targeted engagement with partners to identify and address issues. This aligns with the FCA’s recent proposals on information sharing across distribution chainsMake governance countWe've seen stronger board and senior management engagement compared with earlier reviews.Many firms now have clearer accountability, better action tracking and stronger governance arrangements.However, effective governance is about more than reviewing reports.We still want to see clearer evidence of challenge, discussion and decision-making. Boards and senior leaders should be able to demonstrate how they have scrutinised outcomes, challenged assumptions and driven improvements where needed. Focus on outcomes, not activityOne theme runs through the strongest examples we reviewed.They don't just show what they monitored. They show what happened as a result.They can identify an issue, understand its cause, take action and then assess whether that action improved outcomes for customers.As firms continue embedding the Duty, they should consider whether their monitoring gives them a clear enough view of customer outcomes and whether it leads to timely, effective action.The firms making the strongest progress aren't necessarily collecting more information. They're using it more effectively to understand their customers, identify harm earlier and drive meaningful improvements.And that's what outcomes monitoring under the Duty is intended to achieve.

Millions of car finance customers who may be owed compensation can get help making a complaint for free, as the FCA launches a national advertising campaign. Research by the FCA found that 27% of car finance customers lack confidence to make a complaint without using a claims management company (CMC) or law firm, despite free tools from the FCA being available.Sheree Howard, executive director at the FCA, said: 'Many people who may be owed compensation aren’t sure where to start or don’t realise they don’t have to pay someone to make a complaint. Our free tools are there to help people feel claim confident – so they can get any money owed back without it costing them a penny.'Many car finance customers are already acting – 59% have made or are considering a claim – but a significant group (23%) say they are unsure of their options.The campaign – running across TV, radio, print, billboards and social media until 6 September – directs people to a free template complaint letter on the FCA website. More than 80% of those surveyed said this would make them more confident complaining directly to their lender.Notes to editorsSee the TV advert.The FCA used Kantar to survey 1,000 motor finance customers online between 25 and 28 June 2026: UK adults aged 18+ who currently hold, or have held, a motor finance arrangement in their own name or jointly.The FCA has launched a £2m advertising campaign to help people concerned about their car finance feel confident making a complaint.More information for consumers can be found on the FCA website.The campaign runs from 27 July to 6 September 2026. Advertising will reach audiences across the country through video on demand platforms (expected to be seen almost 11 million times), alongside 2,180 outdoor placements, national radio stations, print titles with a combined circulation of nearly 3 million, and social media channels including Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.In March, the FCA launched a redress scheme, with consumers expected to be compensated £7.5bn. The scheme is currently partially suspended due to legal challenges. The FCA plans to defend it robustly.