Enhancing Financial Services Bill

The Bill was announced in the King's Speech 2026 background briefing notes 1 but has not yet been introduced to Parliament. HM Treasury continues to deliver substantial parts of the policy package through secondary legislation and the Smarter Regulatory Framework programme set out in Building a Smarter Financial Services Regulatory Framework: Next Phase 2. The Financial Services Growth and Competitiveness Strategy — the policy frame within which the Bill sits — was developed through a call for evidence in 2024–25 34. Regulators have advanced their part of the package: the FCA's listing rules overhaul (PS24/6) 56, its joint remuneration reform with the PRA (PS25/15) 7, and its cryptoasset Handbook consultation (CP25/25) 8. The PRA's Second Competitiveness and Growth Report 2024/25 9 documents how it is operationalising the new secondary objective. Structural reform of payments architecture progressed via HMT's April 2026 streamlined-approach consultation outcome proposing PSR consolidation into the FCA. International openness is being delivered through Overseas Recognition Regimes: the ORR Guidance Document 10, the July 2025 ORR MoU 11, and the February 2026 UK/Switzerland Mutual Recognition Agreement (TS No.6/2026) 12.

In May 2026 HM Treasury and the FCA jointly announced reforms to Money Market Fund Regulations via parallel written ministerial statements (HCWS1562 / HLWS1566) 12. In April 2026 the consultation outcome on a streamlined approach to payment systems regulation set the direction for consolidating the PSR within the FCA 3. February 2026 saw the laying of the cryptoasset Regulations under FSMA 2000 and the designation of Money and Mental Health Policy Institute as a designated consumer and representative body for FCA/PSR super-complaints. The UK/Switzerland Berne Agreement was presented to Parliament in February 2026. The financial crisis management MoU between HMT, the Bank of England and the PRA was updated in September 2025 4. The joint FCA/PRA remuneration reform Policy Statement PS25/15 was published in October 2025 5.

Three sequencing questions will shape practitioner work over the next twelve months. First, when the Bill is introduced and what its actual perimeter looks like: the King's Speech briefing names FOS reform and consumer protection modernisation 1 but is silent on whether SMCR reform (advanced through joint FCA/PRA Discussion Paper DP23/3) 2 will be carried in primary legislation or left to regulator rule-making. Second, the legislative mechanic for PSR consolidation: HMT's April 2026 consultation outcome 3 does not specify whether the merger will be effected by clauses in the Enhancing Financial Services Bill or by a free-standing instrument; affected firms will want clarity early. Third, the cryptoasset perimeter: SI 2026/102 establishes the regime under existing FSMA powers, but the Bill may extend or codify it — particularly in light of the Lords Financial Services Regulation Committee's January 2026 stablecoin inquiry. Practitioners should also watch the FCA's response to CP25/25 cryptoasset Handbook proposals 4 and the ongoing rollout of Smarter Regulatory Framework commencement regulations — the 13th tranche was already laid in February 2026. The PRA's next Competitiveness and Growth Report (expected mid-2026) will be the key empirical baseline against which the Bill's accountability provisions are assessed 5. Engagement with the EU-UK Financial Regulatory Forum 6 will also condition the pace and scope of UK divergence from retained EU rules.

The most significant uncertainty is the absence of Bill text: the King's Speech briefing is the only government source describing scope 1, so most analytical claims about content are forward-looking. Inferred from corpus gap: no Regulatory Policy Committee opinion on the Bill is yet in the corpus (one existed for the predecessor FSMB 2022 2), so cost-benefit analysis cannot yet be tested. FOS reform is named in the briefing but its mechanics are unspecified — the live concern raised in PQs about FOS precedent-setting is not yet addressed in government text. The treatment of equivalence/ORR provisions versus continued reliance on FSMA 2023 powers is unclear 34. Finally, the corpus contains no published industry response (UK Finance, AFME, TheCityUK) to the Leeds Reforms Bill announcement, so industry pressure points are inferred rather than evidenced.