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The UK’s financial watchdog has closed 100 investigations without taking enforcement action in less than three years, slashing the number of active probes to the lowest for almost a decade.
The unprecedented cull of legacy cases highlights a strategic change at the Financial Conduct Authority since Therese Chambers and Steve Smart became co-heads of its enforcement arm in April and June 2023 with the aim to focus on fewer but higher-impact investigations.
The FCA completed 24 investigations between April and November last year, of which nine were closed with no enforcement outcome and 15 resulted in it taking action, according to data the watchdog provided to the Financial Times.
The watchdog also dropped 91 probes without any enforcement action over the two years to March 2025, taking the total since Chambers and Smart were appointed to 100, the biggest cull since it was created in 2013.
In some of its closed cases, the FCA said it had imposed supervisory measures or action had been taken by a different authority.
“We committed to carrying out fewer, more focused investigations and we are delivering,” said an FCA official. “We continue to take action where we see the most egregious misconduct and are getting outcomes in more of our cases.”
City of London lawyers who represent companies in cases brought by the FCA said the watchdog had become more selective in which investigations it opened, focusing on clear-cut cases where it was more confident of an enforcement outcome.
“This is good news from an efficiency point of view,” said Tracey Dovaston, a partner at law firm Pallas. “Cases no longer appear to be being opened merely for diagnostic purposes, which means less matters are opened and referred to enforcement.”
The biggest fines the FCA imposed last year were for breaching its anti-money laundering rules, including a £44mn penalty for the building society Nationwide and a £39mn fine for Barclays Bank.
The watchdog opened 23 investigations in the year to March 2025 and 25 the previous year, a drop from previous years when it regularly opened more than twice as many. Its stock of active cases almost halved from 230 in 2022 to 124 in October.
The government has been pushing the FCA and other financial regulators to ease business restrictions to support the UK’s struggling economy.
In response, the watchdog has tried to speed up its investigations. Last year it announced an outcome in seven investigations within 16 months of launching them, compared with a historical average of 42 months.
However, the FCA has expanded its powers by launching a new regulatory regime for cryptoasset providers that will come into force in 2027.
It has also introduced rules for non-financial misconduct, such as bullying, violence and harassment, that take effect in 2026 and it is due to take on supervision of anti-money laundering in professional services.
Lorraine Johnston, a financial regulation partner at law firm Ashurst, said the watchdog’s expanded remit would not necessarily mean more investigation activity.
“They have been clear that there is still quite a strong enforcement culture,” said Johnston. “But I still think the numbers will come down.”
Officials at the watchdog said its enforcement output — measured by the number of criminal prosecutions, fines, bans, consumer redress payments or public censures it imposes — remained higher than usual, despite the closure of many inconclusive probes.
In 2024 it announced 41 enforcement actions, and in the 2025 calendar year there were 33, both above its historic annual average of between 20 and 25.
“We are conducting fewer investigations, faster,” Chambers said in a recent speech. “But fewer investigations does not mean fewer outcomes. In fact, we are delivering more.”
“Fewer investigations are ending with no further action,” she said. “Historically less than a third of our enforcement operations ended with an FCA enforcement outcome. Today the majority do.”