Summary
What this article covers in 30 seconds
- The FCA report covers lenders, administrators and intermediaries in mortgages and home finance.
- Firms are expected to adapt to changing consumer needs and evidence good outcomes.
- Responsible lending, support for financial difficulty and second charge lending remain in focus.
- Advice quality depends on suitability, record-keeping, assurance and journey-wide outcome testing.
The FCA has published its Regulatory Priorities report for the mortgages sector, setting out where it will focus supervisory attention over the year ahead. The report covers mortgage and home finance lenders, administrators and intermediaries, and gives boards and senior leaders a clearer view of regulatory expectations.
The mortgage market has shown relative resilience, including relatively low arrears despite pressure on interest rates. But the FCA’s emphasis is that resilience alone is not enough. Firms are expected to show how they are adapting to changing consumer needs and delivering good outcomes with the Consumer Duty embedded across the customer journey.
A mortgage market evolving in real time
The report recognises that the mortgage market no longer resembles the market of a decade ago. Consumers are buying later, borrowing for longer and managing mortgage debt alongside other financial commitments into later life.
The Mortgage Rule Review is the FCA’s way of responding to these shifts. It aims to support innovation and access without compromising responsible lending or consumer protection.
For firms, this creates both opportunity and challenge. Greater flexibility to meet customer needs comes with higher expectations around how risks and outcomes are understood, monitored and evidenced. The FCA also expects firms to contribute insight and data to consultations and work on later-life lending, reflecting a broader move towards evidence-led policymaking.
Responsible lending under closer, ongoing monitoring
Responsible lending remains central to the FCA’s priorities. The report emphasises affordability as an ongoing area for review, not a one-off assessment, as products, customer profiles and economic conditions change.
The FCA does not prescribe new rules in this area, but it signals that firms should be able to show their affordability approaches remain appropriate and continue to deliver good outcomes. This increases the importance of oversight, management information and early identification of emerging risks.
Support for borrowers in financial difficulty also remains in focus. The FCA expects timely and appropriate forbearance, with evidence of how policies translate into real customer experiences. Second charge lending receives specific attention, with firms expected to assess whether affordability and expenditure assumptions reflect customer circumstances.
Advice quality and the full customer journey
Advice quality is the third headline priority. The FCA’s focus goes beyond individual advice interactions to the systems, controls and assurance that support them.
Firms need to ensure advisers recommend products suitable for customers’ needs, including complex scenarios such as later-life borrowing or debt consolidation. Record-keeping and quality assurance are highlighted, reinforcing the need for evidence that good outcomes are being delivered consistently.
Advice quality is closely linked to the Consumer Duty. Firms should understand and test outcomes across the customer journey, rather than relying on point-in-time checks or assumptions about what good looks like.
Governance, resilience and technology
The report also brings together themes including operational resilience, disorderly failure planning, conflicts of interest, appointed representative oversight, Senior Managers and Certification Regime accountability, and use of technology and AI.
Together, these themes show a regulatory focus on how well firms understand what is happening in their businesses. Strong governance increasingly depends on timely, accurate insight, not just policies and controls. Firms need to evidence how controls operate in practice as they scale, outsource and adopt new technologies.
Turning regulatory priorities into insight
For boards and senior leaders, the value of the report lies in the direction it sets. The FCA is clear about where it will look, the outcomes it cares about and the evidence firms should be able to access quickly.
Firms that can surface insight, monitor outcomes effectively and respond early to emerging risks are better placed to operate confidently. Technology has a role as an enabler of oversight, assurance and more meaningful MI, rather than as a replacement for judgement.
How Recordsure supports mortgage firms
Recordsure helps mortgage firms capture, analyse and evidence customer interactions at scale. Capture creates an audio record of client conversations, whether in person or online, and turns conversations into meeting summaries.
Recordsure technology applies speech and document analytics to transform oversight. With broader coverage, smarter automation and richer MI, firms can gain clearer insight into advice quality, emerging risks and customer outcomes, supporting faster and more confident decision-making.
Frequently asked questions
It covers mortgage and home finance lenders, administrators and intermediaries, and sets supervisory priorities for the year ahead.
It is the FCA’s response to market shifts such as later buying, longer borrowing and more complex later-life lending needs.
Affordability should be actively reviewed as products, customer profiles and economic conditions change.
Firms need to understand and test outcomes across the customer journey, not rely only on point-in-time checks.