FCA authorisations update

FCA Authorisations Update: 2025–26 Q2 – What You Need to Know

The FCA has released its Q2 service-metric performance, showing a mixed picture across authorisations:

🔹 Most applications are still being processed within statutory deadlines, but some areas remain under pressure due to case complexity and increased scrutiny.

🔹 Higher-risk and more complex applications are taking longer, reflecting the FCA’s continued focus on robust assessments, operational resilience, financial crime controls, and business models.

🔹 Variations of permission and change-in-control cases continue to see delays, driven by incomplete applications and firms not meeting threshold conditions.

🔹 The FCA highlights ongoing work to improve processing times, including more proactive engagement and better-quality application support to firms.

For compliance teams, the message is clear:

Expect more rigorous questioning, longer timelines for complex submissions, and increased emphasis on financial crime, governance, and consumer duty readiness.

At Watchdog, we enhance this picture by going beyond the FCA register extract ; our platform searches for disciplinary actions, financial distress signals, and independent red flags across multiple data sources using AI, giving firms a deeper due-diligence lens.

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