FCA Finalises Simplified Transaction Reporting Rules to Cut Industry Costs by Over £100m

The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has finalised new rules to simplify and streamline transaction reporting requirements for financial firms, a move projected to generate over £100 million in annual compliance cost savings for the industry. The regulatory updates are structured to maintain high-quality data collection for detecting market abuse and supervising market stability while eliminating duplicative and low-value reporting burdens. According to the regulator, the current annual cost of MiFID transaction reporting to the industry stands at £493 million. The revised framework is estimated to lower this cost to roughly £385 million, yielding a net annual saving of approximately £108 million. Under the new rules, the FCA is reducing the total number of required transaction reporting fields from 65 to 52. The regulator is also removing foreign exchange (FX) derivatives from transaction reporting obligations, which will lower compliance costs for more than 400 firms. In addition, reporting requirements will be removed for approximately 7 million financial instruments—including equities, bonds, and certain derivatives—that are traded exclusively on EU trading venues. This measure alone is expected to save market participants about £32 million per year. The FCA has also shortened the required lookback period for correcting historical transaction reporting errors from five years to three years, cutting the volume of necessary report resubmissions by a third. Therese Chambers, Joint Executive Director of Enforcement and Market Oversight at the FCA, noted that transaction reports remain the backbone of market oversight and financial crime detection, adding that the streamlined approach delivers meaningful cost relief while keeping UK markets clean and competitive. The updated rules are scheduled to take effect on 3 April 2028, offering firms time to test and implement updated IT systems. The FCA stated it will maintain a flexible supervisory approach to allow firms ready to adopt certain changes earlier to do so. The regulator is also continuing its collaboration with the Bank of England and HM Treasury through the cross-industry Transaction and Post-trade Reporting Industry Harmonisation Taskforce to further align reporting frameworks.