What the New FCA Consultation Papers Really Mean: Navigate 2026’s Regulatory Changes With Confidence

The UK financial services sector is gearing up for a wave of transformative regulatory changes that will reshape how firms operate. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has issued a series of consultation papers set to bring about a major overhaul of complaints reporting, redress handling and management of deferred payment credit (DPC).

With these new regulations due in 2026, businesses that delay preparation risk scrambling to meet tight deadlines and struggling to quickly adapt to complex new requirements.

The good news? By investing in the right systems, controls and flexible processes now, your business can be prepared for what’s to come, smoothly adapting to change while maintaining full compliance.

Read on to discover what each consultation paper entails, the challenges your financial services business could face, and how adaptable technology can help you navigate these changes effortlessly. From simplifying reporting to managing mass remediation events, we’ll cover the essentials to keep you compliant and efficient as 2026 approaches.

CP25/13: Improving the Complaints Reporting Process

CP25/13 marks the FCA’s first big step toward simplifying complaints reporting by introducing a single, streamlined and consistent approach. Gone will be the tangled web of overlapping submissions—from Dispute Resolution: Complaints Sourcebook (DISP) to consumer credit and claims management—replaced by one unified return.

While this sounds straightforward, the impact is significant. Your business will need to adopt a new taxonomy for complaint categories, boost data integrity and prepare to report data at the entity level on a fresh schedule.

While the first official submission deadline is December 2026, organisations like yours must start collecting data using the new taxonomy from July 1, 2026—cutting the preparation time in half.

To ensure you're prepared, you will need a complaints management system that includes:

• Configurable taxonomies for easy updates

• Entity-level reporting capabilities

• Robust data validation and contextualisation

• Vulnerability detection

• No-code adaptability for quick configuration

Although these new ways of working are a regulatory requirement, they also presents a valuable opportunity to modernise and improve your complaints reporting processes.

CP25/22: Modernising Redress

CP25/22 is all about speeding up, improving fairness and enhancing the quality of complaint outcomes. The FCA wants consumers to benefit from faster, more empathetic and fairer resolutions.

A key highlight is the introduction of Mass Remediation Events (MREs)—large-scale redress efforts aimed at addressing systemic harm. This is particularly poignant as remediation is shifting from being a rare exception to a regular part of the process.

To support this, your systems should include:

• Service-level tracking and alerts

• Root cause analysis dashboards

• Case treatment automation

• Scalable workflows for mass remediation

• Quality assurance

Your complaints handling needs to transform into an agile fairness engine that resolves issues quickly and consistently, ensuring better outcomes for you and your customers.

CP25/23: Deferred Payment Credit (and the Consumer Duty Connection)

CP25/23 introduces regulation for Deferred Payment Credit (DPC), also known as Buy Now, Pay Later schemes, by mid-2026. Although its scope is more focused, this consultation reinforces the core Consumer Duty principles throughout the product lifecycle.

Complaints teams will need to manage new case types, closely monitor vulnerability and provide clear evidence of fair outcomes.

Your complaints management systems will require key capabilities to manage these regulations including:

• Flexible case type creation

• Consumer Duty tagging

• Vulnerability tracking at both case opening and closure

Alongside CP25/13 and CP25/22, this consultation highlights the critical need for ensuring that you have adaptable systems in place that can evolve seamlessly with regulatory changes.

CP25/27: Motor Finance Commissions and the Era of Mass Remediation

CP25/27 relates to the FCA’s Motor Finance Consumer Redress Scheme, which focuses on harm caused by discretionary commission arrangements. This is set to be one of the largest redress exercises in recent years, with compensation expected to roll out later in 2026.

Motor finance organisations will face a significant increase in cases that require precise assessment and fair redress.

To manage this, you need a complaints management system that supports:

• Remediation templates for quick deployment

• Automated case treatments

• Customer validation through integrations like Experian

• Risk event management to spot potential issues

To handle this successfully, your complaint systems need to be agile, operating at two speeds: steady business-as-usual handling and rapid mass remediation, both supported by strong control and governance frameworks.

Your Next Step: Leveraging Aptean Respond for Regulatory Success

The message from all four consultation papers is clear: act early and adapt proactively. Meeting these new requirements not only ensures compliance but also strengthens customer trust and your operational resilience.

Feeling overwhelmed by the scale of change? That’s where Aptean Respond comes in. Built specifically for the financial services sector, Aptean Respond is a powerful complaints management system designed to keep you ahead of evolving regulatory demands.

Here’s what Aptean Respond brings to the table:

• No-code configuration for quick, easy customisation

• Robust data integrity to ensure accuracy

• Scalable workflows tailored for mass remediation

• Proactive risk event management

• Inline quality assurance to maintain high standards

• Seamless integrations for customer validation

With Aptean Respond, you can simplify complaints handling, automate case management and efficiently manage large-scale remediation—all while maintaining full control and governance.

Ready to navigate the FCA’s new regulations with confidence? Contact us today to schedule a demo and discover how Aptean Respond can keep your business compliant, efficient and future-ready.