Who regulates what: FCA, PRA, Bank of England, PSR and The Pensions Regulator

Most people who use a bank, credit card, loan, insurance policy or workplace pension never deal with a regulator directly. But knowing which body stands behind each kind of firm matters the moment something goes wrong: it decides who you complain to, who can order a firm to pay you, and who can step in if a firm fails.

The short answer is that the Financial Conduct Authority regulates how financial firms treat their customers across the UK, from banks and lenders to insurers and advisers¹. The Bank of England, through the Prudential Regulation Authority, supervises the safety of the firms themselves². The Payment Systems Regulator oversees the systems that move your money, such as card networks and bank transfers³. The Pensions Regulator polices workplace pensions and the duties employers owe their staff⁴. None of these bodies settles an individual complaint for you: that job belongs to the Financial Ombudsman Service, and in some pension cases the Pensions Ombudsman⁵.

The UK's financial regulators at a glance

Five names cover almost everything a consumer touches. The FCA is described by the Northern Ireland direct government services as the body that "regulates financial services in the UK"¹, and by the House of Commons Library as "the UK's financial services conduct regulator"⁷. Its remit, set out in the Financial Services and Markets Act, covers the conduct of organisations offering financial services, including consumer protection, market integrity and the promotion of healthy competition⁸.

The Bank of England hosts the Prudential Regulation Authority, which looks at the same firms from the other direction: not how they treat you, but whether they are safe and sound. The Payment Systems Regulator sits over the pipes that money travels through. The Pensions Regulator watches employers and workplace pension schemes. And the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, though not a regulator, follows rules set by the FCA and PRA and pays out when an authorised firm fails⁹.

Two things are worth knowing about how this fits together. First, regulation of financial services is a power reserved to the UK Government, so the same regulators cover England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland rather than each nation having its own¹⁰. Second, the boundaries are not always where you might guess. Credit unions in Great Britain, for example, are regulated by both the FCA and the Bank of England's Prudential Regulation Authority¹¹, and access to cash is now shared between the FCA and the PSR, as explained below.

FCA: the conduct regulator for financial firms and products

The FCA is the regulator most consumers will come across. Its job is the conduct of financial firms: how banks, lenders, insurers, brokers and advisers behave towards their customers. One of its responsibilities is ensuring fair practice in consumer credit, which covers credit cards, loans, overdrafts and similar products². It also regulates firms that give financial advice, including advice about pensions and Self Invested Personal Pensions¹².

The FCA's rulebook is where the detailed obligations live, from how a lender must treat a borrower in difficulty to what an advert for a high-cost loan must say. The FCA Handbook sets these out, and the FCA consults publicly before making or changing significant rules, a process covered in consultations and discussion papers.

Its remit keeps expanding into areas that used to sit outside regulation. Buy now pay later is one example: the FCA now regulates these agreements, and its own guidance tells consumers how to check a lender is properly authorised before borrowing¹³. Claims management companies are another: complaints about their conduct go to the FCA¹⁴. The FCA will also authorise and regulate pensions dashboard operators, the services being built to let people see all their pensions in one place¹⁵.

What the FCA does not do is act as a complaints service for individuals. It supervises firms, publishes rules and takes enforcement action when firms break them, covered in how the FCA acts against firms. But it cannot pay you compensation or order a firm to compensate you, even where you have received poor service¹⁴. That division of labour, regulator for the system, ombudsman for the individual, runs through everything that follows.

Checking a firm is authorised and avoiding scams

Before dealing with any financial firm, the single most useful check is whether it is authorised. The FCA provides a tool, the Firm Checker, to help consumers check whether financial services firms are authorised and have permission to sell products and services¹⁶. The Financial Ombudsman Service directs people to the same tool: use the FCA's Firm Checker to confirm the firm is authorised and help avoid scams before considering an investment, pension opportunity, loan or other financial service¹⁷.

The check matters because authorisation is what connects a firm to the protections most consumers assume exist. The FSCS sets out the sequence itself: first check your provider is authorised by the FCA, then find out whether the particular activity the firm is carrying out for you is regulated by the PRA or the FCA¹⁸. Protection depends on both steps, a point covered in more detail in regulated or unregulated investments.

For specific products the check has a specific shape. For a buy now pay later or other lender, the FCA's guidance is to search the firm by name, select "Borrowing money, including credit card lending and credit information", and check the firm is "Authorised" with permission to "Lend you money on an unsecured basis"¹³. For a credit broker, the Ombudsman advises making sure the broker is on the FCA's Financial Services Register, which means they are authorised and regulated by the FCA¹⁹.

If something looks wrong, the FCA is, in the Bank of England's words, "the go-to contact" if you want to check whether a firm is legitimate or report a possible scam². Pension scams in particular should be reported to the pension provider, the FCA and Action Fraud⁷. The dedicated guide to scams and fraud covers the warning signs in detail.

Bank of England and PRA: keeping banks and the system safe

The Prudential Regulation Authority is part of the Bank of England, and its role is stated plainly: "it makes sure firms do business safely and reduce their chances of getting into financial difficulty"². The PRA supervises about 1,300 financial institutions, including banks and insurance companies². The FCA's own firm-checking pages put the figure at around 1,500 banks, building societies, credit unions, insurers and major investment firms¹⁶. The two counts differ because they were taken at different times and may draw the boundary differently, but the scale is the same: roughly one and a half thousand of the largest firms.

The split between the FCA and PRA is easiest to see with a bank. The PRA asks whether the bank holds enough capital and is run safely enough to survive losses. The FCA asks whether the bank treats its customers fairly when it sells them accounts, loans or investments. Most large firms answer to both, a model known as dual regulation and explained further in how UK banks are regulated.

The PRA's fingerprints are on consumer protections too, indirectly. The FSCS follows rules set by both regulators, and the PRA is responsible for the deposit and insurance rules that underpin compensation, while the FCA is responsible for rules relating to other activities⁹. So the deposit protection a saver relies on ultimately traces back to PRA rule-making, while investment protection traces to the FCA.

The Bank of England also has a hand in lending rules at the system level. It has created rules to limit the riskiest type of mortgage lending²⁰. These are aimed at stability rather than individual treatment, and sit alongside the FCA's affordability rules, which came out of the Mortgage Market Review. For borrowers, the practical rules on how a lender must assess and treat them come from the FCA.

PSR: the regulator for payment systems, not individual payments

The Payment Systems Regulator describes itself as "the first economic regulator to oversee payment systems"³. Its concern is the infrastructure: the card networks, the faster payments system and similar rails that money travels on, and the operators and major institutions that run them. It works alongside the Bank of England and the FCA to foster a well-functioning payments industry²¹.

The PSR's own list of what it does not do is as important as what it does. It does not deal with consumer related issues, does not handle complaints from consumers about individual payments, and does not get involved with financial issues beyond the payments industry³. Its consumer information pages repeat the point: "The PSR doesn't handle queries or complaints from consumers about individual payments"⁶. If a transfer goes missing or a card payment is taken twice, the complaint route is your provider and then the Financial Ombudsman Service, not the PSR.

Where the PSR touches consumers is at the level of rules and markets. It is the lead competent authority for monitoring and enforcing the UK Interchange Fee Regulation, the cap on the fees card issuers charge retailers, designated to it by the Treasury in the Payment Card Interchange Fee Regulations 2015²². It has also turned its attention to digital wallets, with policy work supporting its commitment to sharpen focus on competition and innovation in payment systems²³. But it does not have the power to widen the scope of interchange fee regulation in the UK, a limit it has stated itself when fees on UK-EU card transactions rose²⁴.

Access to cash is the area where the PSR's work is most visible on the high street. It continues to oversee LINK, the ATM network, making sure people and businesses have access to cash across the UK⁶, a role detailed in the access to cash rules.

APP scams, Confirmation of Payee and card fees: what the PSR oversees

Authorised push payment (APP) scams, where a victim is tricked into sending money themselves, are the payments issue most consumers meet. Here the PSR does set rules that reach individual wallets, even though it never handles individual cases. It has consulted on requiring reimbursement of APP scam victims, work led by Chris Hemsley, the PSR's Managing Director²⁵, and it has consulted on a similar reimbursement requirement for CHAPS, the Bank of England's high value payment system²⁶. Its consolidated policy statement is blunt about the boundary: "We do not have an adjudicatory function and cannot consider individual complaints from consumers"²⁷.

The scale of the problem explains the attention. The PSR notes that faster payments is "the system over which the majority of these scams happen"²⁶. Its work on scams goes back years: it confirmed plans to consult on using its regulatory powers, including a General Direction, to push the industry toward a contingent reimbursement model for scam victims²⁸. The current rules on what banks must do, and how to complain about a refund refusal, are covered in scams and fraud.

Card fees are the other consumer-facing PSR topic. As lead authority for the Interchange Fee Regulation, it monitors the interchange fees that sit inside every card payment, a mechanism explained in card interchange and scheme fees. When interchange fees on UK-EU card transactions rose, the PSR reminded Mastercard and Visa of the need to assure themselves of their compliance with all legal obligations²⁴, while being clear it could not widen the regulation's scope itself.

On cash, the division of labour is shifting. The Financial Services and Markets Act 2023 gave the FCA powers to protect access to cash, though not wider banking services²⁹, specifically powers to oversee the continued provision of cash deposit and withdrawal facilities to individuals and businesses³⁰. The PSR, which had overseen LINK and the ATM network, states it will continue to work with the FCA as the FCA assumes the lead role in protecting access to cash in the long term³¹. For a consumer, that means questions about a local ATM or cash withdrawal now ultimately sit with the FCA, while the PSR keeps watch on the network behind them.

The Pensions Regulator: workplace pensions and automatic enrolment

The Pensions Regulator, usually called TPR, is the statutory body for workplace pensions. Its interest is not your personal pension pot but the conduct of employers and the trustees running schemes. When you report an employer to TPR, it uses the information to assess whether that employer is meeting their automatic enrolment duties⁴, the legal obligation to put eligible staff into a pension scheme and pay into it.

TPR's remit overlaps with the FCA's at the edges. The FCA regulates financial services firms, including those providing financial advice on pensions and Self Invested Personal Pensions¹². TPR regulates the schemes and the employers. Both regulators will regulate the pension schemes and providers sharing data with pensions dashboards¹⁵, the services due to connect providers by 31 October 2026. In practice: a complaint about how a pension provider treated you goes to the FCA's world and then the Financial Ombudsman; a concern that your employer is not enrolling staff or not paying contributions in goes to TPR.

TPR also has a whistleblowing dimension. If you think your employer or workplace pension scheme is involved in wrongdoing in an area TPR regulates, you can report it in confidence¹². There is a separate statutory duty on people holding certain roles connected with a scheme, such as an employee of a pension scheme, a trustee or an adviser, to report breaches of the law to TPR in some circumstances¹². Ordinary members are encouraged, not legally required, to come forward.

If an employer goes bust owing pension money, a different protection kicks in. You can claim for contributions deducted from your pay but not paid into the scheme during the 12 months before your employer became insolvent, and you may also receive unpaid contributions payable by the employer on its own account for the same 12 months³². That is a compensation route, not a regulatory one, and it sits alongside the protections described in pensions.

Missing pension contributions: report after 90 days

The clearest trigger for reporting to TPR is time. TPR asks to be told when "your pension contributions have not been paid into your pension scheme for 90 days or more"³³. Before that, the guidance is to raise your concern with your employer or scheme directly, and to report to TPR if you feel unable to do that or still have concerns after speaking to them¹².

To report missing payments, TPR needs specific information: the name and address of your employer, your employer's PAYE number if they have one, how much money you think is missing and when it should have been paid, and any evidence you have³³. For reporting other concerns about a scheme, the requirement is simpler: the name and address of who you are reporting, and the evidence you want to send³⁴.

Two practical points from TPR's own guidance. First, missing payments and employer non-compliance with pension duties are reported using a different form from other concerns about a workplace pension scheme³⁴, so the right form depends on what has gone wrong. Second, if you have received a letter from your scheme provider telling you that your employer has already been reported to TPR, you do not need to report it yourself, as TPR is already aware and investigating⁴.

The process TPR's guidance sets out, from comparing payslip to statement to filing a report.

Regulators do not settle individual complaints

The rule that catches most people out is that none of the regulators discussed here will decide your personal dispute. The FCA cannot pay compensation or order a claims management company to compensate you, even if you have received poor service¹⁴. The PSR states it has no adjudicatory function and cannot consider individual complaints from consumers²⁷. TPR uses reports to assess employer compliance, not to recover your money⁴.

This is not indifference; it is a designed division of labour. Regulators set rules, supervise firms and enforce against breaches across the market. The job of deciding whether you personally were treated badly, and ordering redress, belongs to the ombudsman services, and to the FSCS where a firm has failed. The comparison page FSCS or Financial Ombudsman: who to go to works through the boundary.

There are narrow exceptions where the rules themselves grant a remedy. Under the payment services regulations, a payment firm must refund the amount of an unauthorised payment transaction to the payer and, where applicable, restore the debited account to the state it would have been in had the transaction not taken place³⁵. But even there, if the firm refuses, it is the Ombudsman, not a regulator, that makes the firm comply in your case.

Where to take a complaint about a bank, payment or pension

The route for almost every complaint starts in the same place: the firm itself. The PSR's consumer guidance is typical: contact your financial provider, such as your bank, and you can also contact the Financial Ombudsman Service if you are still unhappy³. The firm must investigate and give you a final response; only then does the Ombudsman take over.

Where a complaint goes depending on the firm and the outcome of its own investigation.

The Financial Ombudsman Service handles complaints across banking and payments¹⁷, fraud and scams³⁷, insurance and pensions and annuities⁵. It can also help people with complaints about claims management companies³⁸. One boundary matters for pensions: if the firm you want to complain about is not on the FCA Register, the complaint should be referred to the Pensions Ombudsman instead⁵.

For a scam refund refusal specifically, the sequence is: complain to the bank in writing, and if it refuses and you are still unhappy, take the case to the Financial Ombudsman Service, which deals with fraud and scam complaints³⁷. For complaints about a claims company's conduct, the route runs to the FCA, and if you want compensation you will be referred to the Financial Ombudsman Service¹⁴. If an authorised firm has failed rather than merely mistreated you, the FSCS is the destination, and its eligibility rules decide what is covered⁹. Free, impartial help navigating any of this is available from MoneyHelper-style sources listed in consumer protection, and the comparison of the Ombudsman against court action explains when each route fits.