FCA Perimeter Report 2026/27 and “next phase of smarter regulation” announcement
Tag: S-2026-03-26-fca-perimeter-report-2026-27 Type: report (perimeter report + news story accompanying the 2026/27 annual work programme) Author(s): Financial Conduct Authority Date of source: 2026-03-26 (first published and last updated 26/03/2026) Date ingested: 2026-06-02 Authority weight: high — primary UK conduct regulator; official perimeter report and corporate news story. Raw file: S-2026-03-26-fca-perimeter-report-2026-27.md. External URL: https://www.fca.org.uk/news/news-stories/fca-sets-out-next-phase-smarter-more-effective-regulation
What it claims
Alongside its 2026/27 annual work programme, the FCA published its Perimeter Report 2026/27, setting out the most significant issues at the edge of its remit and asking Government for action on 15 areas where perimeter change is needed (including removal of Financial Promotion Order self-certification exemptions and tighter thresholds for high net worth / sophisticated investors; trustee authorisation; clarity on sports / non-financial spread betting; and payments-framework modernisation). The report highlights key new issues falling outside the FCA’s perimeter that may pose consumer risk, explicitly naming: “Annex 1 firms” regulated only for money-laundering purposes; “the growing use of general-purpose AI for guidance on borrowing, saving and investing”; and speculative prediction-market products. The accompanying news story also details the FCA’s own AI adoption — integrating AI into regulatory workflows, using generative AI to review firm documents (rolling out across authorisations and supervision after successful testing), a sandbox for automated FCA-firm data feeds, expanding the Supercharged Sandbox with synthetic data, and proposing a 1% minimum/flat-fee rise (0.7% AFR increase, lowest in a decade).
Notable quotes
“Key new issues highlighted in this year’s report that fall outside our perimeter and may pose risks to consumers include: … The growing use of general-purpose AI for guidance on borrowing, saving and investing”. — FCA news story, 26 March 2026
What’s speculative vs. asserted
- Asserted: the publication of the Perimeter Report 2026/27; the 15 perimeter-change asks; the three named new out-of-perimeter risks (Annex 1 firms; GPAI consumer guidance; prediction markets); the FCA’s own GenAI document-review rollout; the 1% / 0.7% fee figures.
- Speculative / forward-looking: whether Government acts on any of the 15 perimeter asks; how consumer-facing GPAI advice will ultimately be brought into scope, if at all. The report flags the risk; it does not set a remedy.
Topics this feeds
Open questions raised
- How the FCA expects firms to manage consumer reliance on out-of-perimeter general-purpose AI for financial guidance under Consumer Duty.
- Whether GPAI-for-consumer-advice will be addressed by perimeter legislation, FCA guidance, or left to firm-level Consumer Duty controls.
Ingestion note
Surfaced via WebFetch of the FCA news story (succeeded). Item dated 26 March 2026 — not within the past 7 days; selected because the Perimeter Report’s flag on consumer-facing general-purpose AI is a discrete point not previously captured in the wiki. No FCA AI/data-governance publication newer than the already-ingested late-May PS26/6 (SM&CR review) was found this run; the freshest FCA consultation seen on the publications listing was CP26/15 (financial promotions rules for consumer credit), which is tangential to AI/data governance.