Prudential regulation

The Bank of England prudentially regulates and supervises financial services firms through the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA).

Who are we

As part of the Bank of England, we are responsible for the prudential regulation and supervision of around 1,500 banks, building societies, credit unions, insurers and major investment firms.

Our rules require financial firms to maintain sufficient capital and have adequate risk controls in place. Close supervision of firms ensures that we have a comprehensive overview of their activities so that we can step in if they are not being run in a safe and sound way or, in the case of insurers, if they are not protecting policyholders adequately.

Find out more about what the PRA does

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Latest Covid updates

For our latest Covid updates see Our response to coronavirus (Covid): regulatory measures for PRA-regulated firms

15 April 2021: We published PS8/21 ‘Non-systemic UK banks: The Prudential Regulation Authority’s approach to new and growing banks’. This PS is relevant to UK banks. The implementation date is Thursday 15 April 2021.

14 April 2021: Jointly with the FCA, we published a letter to banks and building societies on obtaining deposits via deposit aggregators. This letter highlights the risks associated with the increasing volumes of deposits that are placed with banks and building societies via deposit aggregators, and how to mitigate them.

12 April 2021: We have set up the Holding company approvals page. This is aimed towards certain parent financial holding companies and parent mixed financial holding companies established in the UK, that are required by FSMA to apply to us, for approval or exemption from the new requirement, to be approved.

8 April 2021: We published CP8/21 ‘Regulated fees and levies: Rates proposals 2021/22’. This CP is relevant to all firms that currently pay PRA fees or are expecting to do so within the 2021/22 fee year. The consultation closes on Thursday 20 May 2021.

30 March 2021: As part of our work to transform data collection, GABRIEL will be unavailable from 6pm on Thursday 1 April 2021 until 8am on Tuesday 6 April 2021.

Glossary

Consultations papers, policy statements, supervisory statements and statements of policy can be viewed individually by following the links below. Policy statements are published on the same page as the accompanying consultation paper.

Subject to any transitional relief, PRA supervisory statements and PRA statements of policy applicable before 11pm Thursday 31 December 2020 should be read in conjunction with Supervisory Statement (SS) 1/19 which sets out how the PRA expects firms to interpret EU-based references in non-binding PRA regulatory and supervisory materials after the UK’s withdrawal from the EU and the end of the transition period.