FCA Enforcement Watch: what the Consumer Duty cases actually punish

What does FCA Enforcement Watch actually publish?

Enforcement Watch is the FCA's public window into live enforcement work, and the Consumer Duty entries now carry weight. Regarding enforcement posture, the shift is documented: Legal 500 reports that the FCA has ended its grace period for Consumer Duty compliance and is actively using supervisory and enforcement powers. Kingsley Napley's analysis of Enforcement Watch 2 marks three years since the Duty came into force. Travers Smith's Q3 2026 circular confirms the number of live investigations into potential Consumer Duty breaches has risen to 11, from six.

Eleven investigations reads as a modest number against the size of the regulated population. Composition matters more than count: each live case tests whether a firm's evidence matches its claims. The FCA's Consumer Duty hub frames the Duty as higher and clearer standards of consumer protection, and the enforcement list shows what happens when the standards exist on paper only.

Enforcement follows the evidence gap, not the intention gap. (Source: FCA Enforcement Watch)

Which breaches do the Consumer Duty cases actually punish?

Regarding the published cases, the pattern is process, not advice quality. Lawxy reports the FCA shutting 21 firms as it tightens derivatives oversight, arguing their representations to consumers breached the duty not to mislead; the firms disputed that characterisation. Burges Salmon counts FCA action against an offshore cryptoasset firm for an illegal financial promotion among the active enforcement cases — a promotions-control failure, not a disputed portfolio recommendation.

FT Adviser summarises the arc as 'from embedding and evidencing to FCA enforcement' and reports rising whistleblowing reports feeding the caseload. None of the publicised actions turn on a regulator disagreeing with a suitability judgment. Each turns on something a file proves or disproves: what the firm told consumers, which promotions it approved, what monitoring it ran, which records it kept.

Small advice firms read the same pattern in their own risk language. The exposure sits in documentation and monitoring — the two things a 1–5 adviser firm still does by hand in Word.

The punished failure is the unrecorded one. (Source: FCA Enforcement Watch)

Why do records and monitoring failures dominate the caseload?

PRIN 2A defines the Consumer Duty outcomes as testable standards, and tests need artefacts. Regarding record-keeping, the FCA supervises outcomes through what a firm can produce: suitability reports under COBS 9.2.1R, ongoing-service evidence under PRIN 2A.6 and TR24/1 para 1.40, and vulnerability records aligned to FG21/1. FG22/5, the final non-Handbook guidance, sets the same expectation at firm level: outcomes monitoring with evidence behind it.

The payments-firm review in the FCA's good and poor practice series shows the method. Regarding vulnerability evidence, the FCA sampled payments firms and graded how they supported consumers in vulnerable circumstances — a supervision exercise built on documents and outcomes data, not interviews about intent. Small advice firms sit inside the same method: the FCA samples files and grades outcomes, so the sample is the audit.

Table: Published enforcement and supervision signals as of Q3 2026, and the evidence each one tests.

Supervision tests records, not intentions. (Source: FCA FG22/5)

What does the evidence look like at file level?

A file survives Consumer Duty scrutiny when each outcome has a matching artefact. Regarding file-level evidence, four artefacts carry most of the weight:

• Suitability report: the personal recommendation, cited against COBS 9.2.1R, with the consumer's circumstances and reasoning on the page.
• Service record: ongoing-service reviews logged with dates, so PRIN 2A.6 and TR24/1 para 1.40 obligations show a trail rather than a promise. Overdue reviews surface as a gap the file cannot answer.
• Vulnerability log: entries consistent with FG21/1, showing identification, support and outcome — the same shape the FCA graded in its payments-firm review.
• Outcomes MI: management information showing the firm monitored results, not just activity.

Detail on the first sits in our file review and suitability hub; the monitoring layer is covered in the outcomes monitoring hub; the vulnerability layer is in the vulnerable customers hub.

The enforcement caseload punishes the missing artefact. A strong recommendation with no service trail still reads as a monitoring failure.

The file is the outcome the regulator reads. (Source: FCA COBS 9.2.1R)

What comes next for Consumer Duty enforcement?

Regarding proportionality, CP26/23 — the FCA's June 2026 consultation — signals the next shape of the regime, as the regulator weighs how the Duty applies proportionately to smaller firms. The FOS 'acted fairly' reform sits in the same current: complaints and enforcement both move toward documented process.

Whistleblowing reports are rising, per FT Adviser, which means more of the caseload starts inside firms rather than in FCA sampling. The FCA's Consumer Duty publications and resources page is the single list where consultations, good and poor practice reviews and Enforcement Watch entries land first.

Three years in, the pattern holds. The FCA punishes what the file cannot show: the unlogged review, the unrecorded vulnerability, the promotion without an approval trail, the monitoring that lived in someone's head. Firms whose files already answer the question meet the caseload without a scramble.

Grace periods end; evidence obligations do not. (Source: FCA FG22/5)

About the Author: Nick Thorp is the founder of Proven Duty and writes about what Consumer Duty means at file level, including the evidence standards facing 1–5 adviser firms.