The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has closed around 100 investigations without taking any further action over the past three years, according to a report by the Financial Times (FT).

The closure of these cases has taken the number of active investigations to the lowest in 10 years.

According to data provided by the regulator to the FT, the FCA conducted 24 investigations between April and November 2025, closing nine of them without any enforcement action.

The FCA also abandoned 91 investigations without taking any action between March 2023 and March 2025.

The increased closure of cases coincides with the appointment of Therese Chambers and Steve Smart to lead the FCA’s enforcement department in April and June 2023.

According to the FT, they have focused on fewer investigations which have a higher impact.

In some of its closed cases, the FCA told the FT that it had imposed supervisory measures or action had been taken by a different authority.

Last year, the biggest fines imposed by the FCA were for breaching its anti-money laundering rules, including a £39 million fine for Barclays.

Last month, Nationwide Building Society received a penalty of £44 million from the regulator over “inadequate” anti-financial crime systems and controls.

During the nearly five-year period of October 2016 to July 2021, the building society had ineffective systems for keeping up-to-date due diligence and risk assessments for all of its personal current account customers and for monitoring their transactions.

The organisation was also aware at the time that some of these customers were using their personal account for business activity, which is in breach of its terms.

The UK financial services watchdog said that in one case, Nationwide missed opportunities to identify a customer using personal current accounts to receive fraudulent Covid furlough payments.

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