Every story in this edition, newest first.
Consumer prices rose 2.9 per cent in the year to July, up from 2.6 per cent in June, as an Ofgem price-cap increase lifted gas and electricity bills. Core inflation held at 2.6 per cent and services eased to 3.4 per cent, but with the headline back above target a rate cut stays off the table for a Bank of England that last month saw three members vote to hike.
Regular pay growth edged up to 3.5 per cent even as unemployment rose to 4.9 per cent and payrolls fell in July, leaving a divided Monetary Policy Committee with the signal it least wanted before its next rate decision.
By 31 October 2026 every FCA-regulated personal pension provider and every occupational scheme with 100 or more relevant members must be connected to the pensions dashboards ecosystem, the single statutory endpoint of a programme that is now as much a test of data quality as of plumbing.
From 1 January 2027 Britain's banks move onto Basel 3.1, the final tranche of the post-2008 capital rulebook. The framework's output floor then climbs each year, from 50 per cent in 2027 to the full 72.5 per cent in 2030, setting a capital target that keeps rising for the rest of the decade.
The FCA switched on a bond consolidated tape in June, the first to run outside North America. Its 31 July package sets the design for an equity version, and with it a tougher fight over data revenue and pre-trade prices.
The 2026 performance year is the first to fall wholly under a relaxed UK pay regime that cuts the top bonus deferral from seven years to four, lets the most senior bankers vest awards from year one, and scraps the old cash-versus-shares split.
The economy grew 0.4% between April and June, in line with forecasts and firm enough to hand the Bank of England's rate-setting hawks fresh evidence just as markets bet on an autumn cut.
On Thursday morning the Office for National Statistics publishes its first estimate of how the UK economy grew between April and June, the clearest read yet on whether the recovery that carried Britain through the first quarter held into the summer. The number frames the Bank of England's autumn rate path and the consumer story the retail data has only hinted at.
UK retail sales rose 1.3% year on year in July, below the 1.8% twelve-month average, as a 3.8% jump in food masked a 0.7% fall in non-food and a consumer still reluctant to spend on discretionary goods.
FCA policy statement PS25/20 retires the PRIIPs KID and the UCITS KIID, replacing both with a single Consumer Composite Investments product summary that becomes mandatory on 8 June 2027.
The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act recasts Companies House from a passive registry into a gatekeeper. Compulsory identity verification for six to seven million directors and owners falls due on 18 November 2026, a failure-to-prevent-fraud offence is already live, and the one filer deadline that slipped now lands on the same date.
The joint Bank of England and FCA regime lets firms issue, trade and settle tokenised securities on distributed ledgers under modified law. What is actually live, who is inside, and how far it is allowed to scale.
The Lloyds House Price Index recorded no monthly growth in July, the first full data-month computed entirely under the bank's own name, as a held Bank Rate caps the pace of any recovery.
From 1 September 2026 the FCA turns non-financial misconduct, bullying, harassment and violence against colleagues, into a formal Conduct Rule breach across roughly 37,000 non-bank financial firms. It is the biggest extension of the conduct regime beyond the banks since SM&CR reached solo-regulated firms in 2019.
The Pension Schemes Act 2026 makes pooling a statutory duty and moves roughly £400bn of council pensions into six consolidated megafunds. Two of the six are still not FCA-authorised to run the money, and the authorisation clock runs to 30 September 2027.
The FCA has opened three linked consultations that would replace the full-scope AIFM split with three NAV-based size bands, retire the 2013 AIFMD reporting fields under FRAME for a claimed 128m-pound annual saving, and simplify pay rules for solo-regulated firms. The response windows are already open, the first closing 16 September.
Europe's largest bank reports its interims on Tuesday, the first full half under the East-West structure it adopted in 2025. What to watch on Asian profitability, net interest income and the pace of buybacks.
A Treasury consultation would fold the Payment Systems Regulator into the Financial Conduct Authority, put Open Banking on a statutory footing, and set the ground rules for AI-enabled and tokenised payments. It closes on 6 October 2026.
A 6-3 vote and a hawkish August Monetary Policy Report reframed the debate around energy and the closed Strait of Hormuz. Governor Bailey used the press conference to tell markets not to price in a rise.
On 14 July the Treasury and the Prudential Regulation Authority opened paired consultations to implement the ring-fencing review, lifting the deposit threshold from £25bn to £35bn and adding a growth allowance the government says could free up to £80bn, just as the high-street banks report their half-year results.
Charlie Nunn and William Chalmers step up at 09:30 BST on Thursday to set out first-half numbers and a refreshed plan. Here is the ground to watch on costs, net interest income and the shape of capital returns.
Miss the allocated window and Temporary Marketing Permissions fall away immediately. With the final umbrella slots now closing through the summer, the clock is real.
The third annual Consumer Duty board report is due by the end of the month. It has quietly become the document the FCA reads to sort firms that can evidence customer outcomes from those that only assert them.
The joint consultation that opened on 13 July turns the Pension Schemes Act's GBP 25bn scale bar and value-for-money test into the supervisory rules that will thin out Britain's defined-contribution market.
