header-logo header-logo

Home Login E-newsletter About us

A new era for AML supervision

© Copyright LexisNexis 2025. All Rights Reserved.
31 October 2025 / Rebecca Hughes
Issue: 8137 / Categories: Opinion , Profession , Regulatory
printer mail-detail
234245
Ambitious plans to transform the FCA into a super regulator will test the organisation’s capacity & adaptability, but the true test will be in delivery, says Rebecca Hughes

After two years of deliberation, the government has finally published its response to the 2023 consultation on reforming the UK’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML/CTF) supervisory regime. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has been crowned the Single Professional Services Supervisor (SPSS), a surprising outcome for many, not least the professions that will now fall under the FCA’s oversight.

The UK system currently comprises three statutory regulators—the FCA, HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) and the Gambling Commission, alongside 22 Professional Body Supervisors (PBSs) overseeing the legal and accountancy sectors. Each PBS is responsible for ensuring that its supervised population complies with the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017 (MLRs).

This structure has long attracted criticism. The 2015 national risk assessment (the UK’s first comprehensive assessment of money laundering and terrorist financing risk) first

If you are not a subscriber, subscribe now to read this content
If you are already a subscriber sign in
...or Register for two weeks' free access to subscriber content

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Read All
Sponsored by
Myers & Co—Jen Goodwin

Myers & Co—Jen Goodwin

Head of corporate promoted to director

Boies Schiller Flexner—Lindsay Reimschussel

Boies Schiller Flexner—Lindsay Reimschussel

Firm strengthens international arbitration team with key London hire

Corker Binning—Priya Dave

Corker Binning—Priya Dave

FCA contentious financial regulation lawyer joins the team as of counsel

NEWS
Read All
NLJ this week: Making Big Tech pay for digital addiction
Social media giants should face tortious liability for the psychological harms their platforms inflict, argues Harry Lambert of Outer Temple Chambers in this week’s NLJ
NLJ this week: Leaseholders stuck in limbo
The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024—once heralded as a breakthrough—has instead plunged leaseholders into confusion, warns Shabnam Ali-Khan of Russell-Cooke in this week’s NLJ
NLJ this week: When a trial period becomes a ‘reasonable adjustment’
The Employment Appeal Tribunal has now confirmed that offering a disabled employee a trial period in an alternative role can itself be a 'reasonable adjustment' under the Equality Act 2010: in this week's NLJ, Charles Pigott of Mills & Reeve analyses the evolving case law
NLJ this week: Ignore covenants at your peril
Caroline Shea KC and Richard Miller of Falcon Chambers examine the growing judicial focus on 'cynical breach' in restrictive covenant cases, in this week's issue of NLJ
NLJ this week: Courts caught in a ‘hierarchy of privacy’
Ian Gascoigne of LexisNexis dissects the uneasy balance between open justice and confidentiality in England’s civil courts, in this week's NLJ. From public hearings to super-injunctions, he identifies five tiers of privacy—from fully open proceedings to entirely secret ones—showing how a patchwork of exceptions has evolved without clear design
Copyright © 2025 LexisNexis
back-to-top-scroll