The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has launched an action plan in which it has outlined proposals to review its expectations for mortgages and lending, and explore how it can simplify communications about savings accounts.

The proposals form part of the regulator’s work to streamline its rules, reduce burdens on businesses and improve outcomes for consumers following the introduction of the Consumer Duty in 2023.

The FCA’s plans include retiring more than 100 pages of outdated guidance and withdrawing hundreds of supervisory publications to make it easier to navigate regulations for consumer finance, investment and mortgage firms.

The regulator will also review current prescriptive disclosure rules to give firms more flexibility to tailor communications to customers’ needs and preferences.

Furthermore, it will revisit rules for businesses with customers outside the UK. This includes looking at whether insurance firms need to apply UK rules for overseas customers.

The changes come after the FCA received clear feedback to its call for input, which outlined that it is "not the time for wholesale changes" to its rules.

It added that it will continue to engage with the industry and others to "get the balance right, without a widespread overhaul".

Executive director of supervision, policy, competition and international at the FCA, Sarah Pritchard, said: "Now the Consumer Duty is in full force, we’re making changes quickly where stakeholders want us to, to cut unnecessary costs, support growth, and ultimately help consumers get better outcomes.

"These proposals are part of our long-term efforts to future-proof our rules, reduce burdens for financial firms and will help the ambitious government targets to cut the cost of regulation."

This announcement was released alongside the regulator’s launch of a new five-year strategy to "deepen trust, rebalance risk, support growth and improve lives".

The chair at the FCA, Ashley Alder, said that the FCA wants to "deepen trust in financial services” and shift its “collective attitude across financial services to risk".

Under the plan, the FCA will focus on four priorities. These include being a "smarter regulator", supporting sustained economic growth, helping customers navigate their financial lives and fighting financial crime.

Senior regulatory consultant at the lang cat, Alison Gay, concluded: "This morning the FCA has announced, alongside its new five-year strategy, that it will remove 100 pages of regulations from its rule book, which is a fairly small amount, given that the whole rulebook runs to over 10,000 pages.

"What will be welcome is its response to industry complaints about the volume of regulatory material firms are expected to track. It’s planning to review, and withdraw, Dear CEO letters and portfolio letters pre-dating its previous five-year strategy and has committed to review future communications more regularly so that outdated material is regularly withdrawn. This kind of regulatory housekeeping should make life easier for firms."

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