Your guide to this week in regulation

This week, we open with the Financial Conduct Authority's (FCA) package of equity market transparency reforms: a confirmed consolidated tape framework and two new consultations on market structure. Next up, as part of its simplification agenda, we highlight the FCA's finalised transaction reporting reforms, which promise over £100m in annual savings from 2028, with an early flexible approach already available.

The Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) has also published its latest Regulatory Digest, opening three consultations spanning ring-fenced bodies, a new tailored captive insurance regime, and friendly society transfers.

Elsewhere, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has authorised EuroCTP to run the European Union's consolidated tape for shares and exchange-traded funds under the Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation (MiFIR), ahead of a September deadline for the go-live.

We conclude this week on a collaborative note with the US and UK Financial Regulatory Working Group, which sets out shared forward-looking priorities across digital finance, tokenisation and capital markets.

FCA advances equity market transparency reforms

The FCA has published a package of reforms to sharpen transparency and confidence in UK equity markets. It confirms the equity consolidated tape framework, launches an interim market activity reporting tool for shares, and opens two new consultations on market structure.

The package builds on June's UK bond consolidated tape and the FCA's broader capital markets programme. In summary:

• CP26/31 sets final rules for the equity consolidated tape, plus a call for input on further design questions
• CP26/30 consults on targeted market structure reforms to cut fragmentation, and
• the interim market activity reporter gives investors a daily snapshot of trading activity while the tape is built.

Responses to CP26/30 and chapter 10 of CP26/31 are due by 16 October 2026; the call for input in chapter 11 closes on 18 September 2026.

Read more on equity market transparency

FCA cuts transaction reporting costs

PS26/15 lands with a headline number: UK transaction reporting costs to fall from £493m to around £385m a year; a £108m saving for the industry, once the FCA's newly finalised reforms take hold.

Through the proposed reforms, reporting fields drop from 65 to 52. FX derivatives leave the regime entirely. Around 7 million instruments traded only on EU venues lose their reporting requirement, and the window for correcting historical errors shrinks from five years to three.

The new regime takes effect on 3 April 2028, but the FCA will let firms align sooner under a flexible supervisory approach from 3 August 2026. A draft schema, validation rules and guidance follow for consultation in October 2026 to include the technical detail.

Read more on transaction reporting reform

PRA July digest opens three consultations

The PRA's July Regulatory Digest, published 3 August 2026, finalises three policy statements and opens three consultations covering ring-fenced bodies, captive insurance and friendly societies.

Alongside PS16/26 on HM Treasury's Overseas Prudential Requirements Regime, PS17/26 on fees and levies, and PS18/26 on Solvency UK reporting, the PRA has opened:

• CP10/26, which proposes deleting the continuity of provision of services chapter for ring-fenced bodies, closing 14 October 2026
• CP11/26, a joint PRA and FCA proposal for a tailored UK captive insurance regime with lower capital and reporting requirements and faster authorisation, closing 14 October 2026, and
• CP12/26, guidance on the statutory steps for friendly society amalgamations and transfers, closing 22 October 2026.

The PRA's 2026 Firm Feedback Exercise launches in the second half of August 2026.

Read more on the PRA Regulatory Digest

ESMA authorises EU consolidated tape provider

ESMA has authorised EuroCTP B.V. to run the EU's Consolidated Tape Provider for shares and exchange-traded funds, following its earlier selection. EuroCTP now has until 30 September 2026 to finish the operational and technical work before going live.

Once running, EuroCTP holds the mandate for five years under ESMA's direct supervision, in line with the MiFIR framework. Retail investors, academics, civil society organisations and regulators get the data free; everyone else will be required to pay a reasonable fee. The authorisation follows ESMA's earlier appointment of a bond consolidated tape provider and marks the next step in the EU's Savings and Investments Union agenda.

Firms with EU trading venues or reporting obligations have seven weeks to get their data contribution arrangements in shape.

Read more on the EU consolidated tape

US and UK deepen regulatory cooperation

The US Treasury and HM Treasury have published a joint statement from the 13th meeting of the US-UK Financial Regulatory Working Group, held in London on 8 July 2026. The Bank of England, the FCA and several other US and UK regulators also took part.

Talks ranged widely: the economic and financial stability outlook, digital finance and stablecoins, tokenisation, AI adoption, non-bank financial intermediation, banking regulation and Basel III implementation, and capital markets reform, including UK work on funded reinsurance. The session closed with a progress report on the US-UK Transatlantic Taskforce for Markets of the Future, whose initial recommendations were published on 14 July 2026 alongside a joint statement on stablecoins.

The Working Group meets again in early 2027, leaving plenty of runway for the digital assets and tokenisation work in particular to progress further.

Read more on the US-UK Financial Regulatory Working Group