The Bank of England and the Financial Conduct Authority on 5 June 2026 published their annual joint statement reviewing the memorandum of understanding (MoU) that sets out how they cooperate in supervising UK financial market infrastructure (FMI).
The MoU facilitates effective supervision and policy making by exchanging information between the regulators and promotes efficiency by minimising duplication of regulatory activities, according to the statement. The signatories must review the MoU each year to confirm whether the arrangements are proving effective, a process that includes requesting feedback from supervised firms.
FEEDBACK FROM FIRMS
For this review, the Bank and the FCA wrote to central counterparties, recognised investment exchanges and recognised central securities depositories, seeking their views on the regulators' cooperation based on the firms' interactions in 2025. Respondents reported a high degree of coordination across policy and supervisory matters and remained fully supportive of the MoU, the statement said.
The two authorities concluded that the arrangements remain effective, with appropriate coordination and no material duplication. They said close and agile cooperation remains important given the challenging external environment, rapid technological change and shared interests across current policy priorities.
AREAS OF JOINT WORK
According to the statement, the regulators collaborated on rapidly unfolding events in markets, supported innovation and efficiency through initiatives such as tokenisation, the Digital Securities Sandbox and T+1 settlement, and worked together on policy development, including the review of UK EMIR and the final policy on operational incident and outsourcing and third-party reporting (IOREP) for FMIs.
The Bank and the FCA said efficient coordination could improve the effectiveness of their supervision while minimising the burden on firms, and that they would seek to address the specific suggestions received from firms. The authorities published similar joint statements on the MoU's performance in 2023 and 2024.
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