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Prudential regulation

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

Prudential regulation 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.

The Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) at the Bank of England is responsible for this prudential regulation and supervision of around 1,500 banks, building societies, credit unions, insurers and major investment firms.

Find out more about what the PRA does

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Latest Covid-19 updates

For the latest PRA Covid-19 updates see Our response to Coronavirus (Covid-19): regulatory measures for PRA firms

Update 7 May 2020: Jointly with the Bank of England, Financial Conduct Authority, Competition & Markets Authority, Payment Systems Regulator and HM Treasury (as observer member), we published the Regulatory Initiatives Forum’s first grid – a consolidated plan of initiatives that the authorities consider will, or may, have significant operational impact on firms across the next 12 months.

Update 30 April 2020: Joint with the Bank we published a ‘Joint Bank and PRA statement on the proposed use of temporary transitional powers at the end of the transition period’, which relates to HM Treasury’s publication of their intention to ‘shift’ the temporary transitional power.

Update 27 April 2020: We published a speech by Senior Advisor James Proudman, ‘Supervisor-centred automation – the role of human-centred automation in judgement-centred prudential supervision’, given as part of an online webinar.

PRA Regulatory Digest

See all prudential regulation communications published in the last month

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.