Katharine Braddick, chief executive of the Prudential Regulation Authority, has set out plans for a wide-ranging overhaul of banking regulation that the PRA and the Financial Conduct Authority say is expected to save financial services firms £2bn over a 10-year period. Braddick, who took the role in July, unveiled the reforms at Mansion House on 22 October, telling a City audience the watchdog would pursue four priorities (resilience, growth, innovation and transparency) across its next decade. The proposals were reported by City AM.
The centrepiece of the package is a restructuring of the Senior Managers and Certification Regime (SM&CR). The Certification regime, which currently obliges firms to assess, certify and maintain a public register for around 139,000 staff below senior management level each year, would be scrapped under the plans. Non-executive senior roles would move from pre-approval to a straightforward FCA notification, while pre-approvals would be retained for core executive positions.
Scale of the changes
According to a Bank of England news release published on 22 October 2026, the proposals are projected to cut PRA SM&CR pre-approvals by 43% and reduce the overall PRA regime burden by half. Among FCA Enhanced solo-regulated firms, roughly 15% of applications would shift to notification and two Senior Management Function roles would be removed, delivering a further 19% saving, the Bank of England said.
Regulators also plan to lift the qualifying thresholds for consumer credit lenders and asset managers by close to 50%, so that the enhanced requirements would apply only to the largest institutions.
Braddick said the Senior Managers Regime remained an essential part of the UK’s regulatory framework. ‘These proposals keep checks in place for the most important roles, meaning individuals are accountable for their actions, but reduce the administrative burden where it isn’t needed, giving firms more time to invest in growth-focused activities and greater flexibility in onboarding senior talent,’ she said, according to the Bank of England.
Growth objective and cyber resilience
Beyond the SM&CR changes, Braddick said the PRA would develop its secondary growth objective to examine how the regulator’s work ‘influences the investment environment, the availability of capital for the firms we regulate and the pricing of the services they provide’. She told her Mansion House audience: ‘Achieving sustained and sustainable growth is the key economic policy question of this moment and regulation has its part to play, even if it is rarely the determinative factor.’
Braddick also announced the creation of a new unit inside the PRA to act as a ‘centre of excellence for operational and cyber resilience’. The Treasury Select Committee has criticised regulators for ‘not doing enough to manage the risks presented by AI’. Braddick acknowledged the challenge, saying: ‘The PRA is a world-class regulator. To continue to be so, we must become a world leading technologically enabled regulator.’
Braddick was appointed to the role by former Chancellor Rachel Reeves after Sam Woods’ term concluded. She joined the PRA after four years as head of strategic policy at Barclays and, according to the source, was considered an outsider candidate, having beaten Bank of England incumbent David Bailey to the position.
The PRA’s stated aim is to determine, as Braddick put it, ‘what the PRA must deliver in its second decade and how to create the regulator the UK will need for the future.’
