The Financial Conduct Authority says it will help “bring innovative products and services to market faster” over the year ahead.

The UK’s largest regulator is beginning the first year of its new five-year plan, which comes as the government is pressuring all of the UK’s watchdogs to cut red tape to allow firms to grow.

The FCA says that every firm that uses its regulatory sandbox, to test new products will be assigned an authorisation case officer from the start to get products into the marketplace earlier.

Almost 200 firms aimed at UK consumers have been accepted into the regulator’s sandbox since it was introduced in 2016.

The body adds that its pre-application support service, which provides extra support for firms seeking regulatory approval, is now extended to all wholesale, payments, and cryptoasset firms.

The FCA says: “This will encourage firms in these sectors to set up in the UK to fuel growth, exports and job creation, while maintaining standards.”

Last year, the FCA held pre-application meetings for 80 wholesale firms.

The body says it will be guided by four themes this year:

• A smarter regulator: more efficient and effective
• Supporting growth
• Helping consumers navigate their financial lives
• Fighting financial crime

The body also plans to cut the amount of data it collects from firms.

It says it will: “Reduce the burden on firms by only collecting the data we need to achieve our regulatory objectives.

“We continue to review our requests for information and have already identified three regular data returns we plan to stop, which will benefit 16,000 firms.

“We have identified further returns we are considering switching off and plan to consult on these in summer 2025.”

The regulator adds that as regards supervision, it will:

• Focus market engagement on areas where harm is the greatest, focusing on a smaller number of priorities
• Take a more flexible approach, with less intensive supervision for those demonstrably seeking to do the right thing
• Be transparent about the risks and opportunities we see within the market, so that external stakeholders find our actions easier to understand and predict

FCA chief executive Nikhil Rathi adds: “We’re committed to being a smarter regulator — one that supports growth, helps consumers and fights crime.

“Our annual work programme details what we will deliver to achieve these goals.

“And today, we’re setting out how we’ll go further to help firms that want to join our markets with greater support for the application process and to test innovative products.”