The FCA has confirmed it will introduce new clearer rules to tackle serious 'non-financial' misconduct at financial services firms from September 2026.
The FCA, which has been consulting on the proposed rules, says they will provide guidance to support firms to tackle bullying, harassment and violence in financial services.
The regulator says firms asked for additional support and guidance after it changed its existing rules in July.
The changes will set “clearer standards” for how financial services firms should address non-financial misconduct and will more closely align the rules for banks and non-banks.
The FCA said: “We wanted to give firms the confidence to act against serious misconduct, drive consistency and make it clearer when non-financial misconduct is a breach of our rules.”
The FCA said the changes will include:
• New examples and flow charts to support the application of the new rules
• Clearer alignment with employment law
• Clarification that managers' accountability is relative to their knowledge and authority
• Clarification that firms are not expected to investigate trivial or implausible allegations or breach privacy law
The guidance covers how firms can apply FCA rules on minimum standards of behaviour for financial services employees and the factors they should take into account when assessing whether someone is “fit and proper” for their role.
Some firms asked the regulator to go further with more detailed examples but the FCA said that it cannot provide guidance for every situation and firms will always need to exercise judgement. The primary responsibility for preventing and dealing with non-financial misconduct lies with firms, it said.
The FCA said the new rules will “drive higher and clearer standards” across the industry and will be introduced from 1 September 2026.
The watchdog said that when its new financial services workplace rules were introduced earlier this year it asked firms if they wanted additional guidance and 95% of those who responded to the consultation said they did.
• The financial guidance can be found here: providing this final guidance.
