UK regulators report on the mutuals landscape

The UK Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) and the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) have published a joint report on the UK's mutual and cooperative sector, and their commitment to supporting this sector in respect of the regulators' objectives, including the secondary international competitiveness and growth objective. The report follows a request made in November 2024 by the Economic Secretary to the Treasury for a report on the current mutuals landscape before the end of year, as part of the government's commitment to unlock the full potential of this sector in the UK.

The report highlights the regulators' recent work impacting building societies, credit unions, mutual insurers and funeral plan providers. It also notes ongoing reviews and legislative modernisation efforts which support growth in the sector. In particular, the report suggests the government may wish to consider updating the Building Societies Act 1986 and the Credit Unions Act 1979 – commenting that there are other features of credit union legislation that may benefit from being reviewed. Finally, the report also observes that there are many countries with a greater variety of products and services in the mutual sector compared to the UK, and that even though credit unions received powers in 2023 to offer a wider range of products and services including conditional sale, hire purchase and insurance distribution, no credit union has yet applied to the FCA to take advantage of this new benefit.

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