Prudential regulation

Prudential regulation rules require financial firms to hold 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

Latest news and publications

18 April 2019: The Bank of England (Bank) and PRA have published PS5/19 ‘The Bank of England’s amendments to financial services legislation under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018’ – April 2019, which includes final versions of policy materials including EU Exit Instruments, Supervisory Statements (SSs), and a Statement of Policy, which were published as near final on 28 February 2019. Of particular interest to those working with or at PRA-regulated firms are:

• Joint Bank and PRA Statement of Policy ‘Interpretation of EU Guidelines and Recommendations: Bank of England and PRA approach after the UK’s withdrawal from the EU’
• PRA SS1/19 ‘Non-binding PRA materials: The PRA’s approach after the UK’s withdrawal from the EU’
• PRA SS2/19 ‘PRA approach to interpreting reporting and disclosure requirements and regulatory transactions forms after the UK’s withdrawal from the EU’ and
• Update to PRA SS18/15 ‘Depositor and dormant account protection’.

For further information and materials about our work on the UK’s withdrawal from the EU, please see the dedicated EU withdrawal pages that include links to information on the regulatory framework in a no-deal scenario, Authorisation of EEA banks and insurers, the temporary permissions regime, information on the effect of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU on FMI supervision, the Financial Services Contracts Regime, and the transfer of roles and responsibilities to the Bank.

We published a letter ‘Written auditor reporting – update and main thematic findings’ from Victoria Saporta, Executive Director of Prudential Policy sent to Chief Financial Officers of selected deposit-takers.

17 April 2019: We published a news release 'Bank of England to disclose assessment of how it manages climate-related financial risk in the 2019/20 annual report', and an open letter on climate-related financial risks from Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England, Francois Villeroy de Galhau, Governor of the Banque de France, and Frank Elderson, Chair of the Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS). This follows publication of the NGFS’s first comprehensive report ‘A call for action – climate change as a source of financial risk’, also published today. See the Climate change page for more information.

15 April 2019: We issued the following communications which will be of interest to banks and insurers on climate change:

• Policy Statement 11/19 and Supervisory Statement 3/19 on ‘Enhancing banks’ and insurers’ approaches to managing the financial risks from climate change’; and
• ‘Avoiding the Storm: Climate Change and the Financial System’ a speech by Sarah Breeden, Executive Director, International Banks Supervision.

We published the PRA Business Plan 2019/20 that sets out the PRA’s strategy, workplan, and budget for the coming year. Alongside this we published CP9/19 ‘Regulated fees and levies: Rates proposals 2019/20’ which explains how we propose to fund our budget.

We also issued three publications relating to the PRA’s enforcement policy, and regulatory investigations processes:

• Consultation Paper 10/19 ‘Enforcement: Changes to the PRA’s settlement policy’; and
• ‘PRA investigation referral criteria’, and ‘Regulatory investigations guide’ available on the PRA’s statutory powers page.

PRA publications

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. 

• Consultation papers and Policy statements
• Supervisory statements
• Statements of policy
• Prudential regulation news releases and speeches
• Statements and reports
• Letters
• PRA Regulatory Digest