Laura WilesHM Treasury has announced reforms to anti-money laundering and terrorism financing supervision, granting the FCA responsibility for all AML/CTF supervision of professional services firms currently supervised by HMRC or a professional body supervisor (PBS). This includes the legal and accountancy sectors, and trust and company service providers.
Responses to consultation gave a range of views as to which sectors ought to be supervised by a single professional services supervisor (SPSS), with no consensus on which of HMRC’s current sectors should be in scope. For now, HMRC will remain the supervisory authority for other regulated sectors, including: money service businesses not supervised by the FCA; estate and letting agents; art market participants; casinos; and high value dealers.
Currently, the AML/CTF supervisory system consists of three statutory supervisors – the FCA, the Gambling Commission and HMRC – and 22 PBSs. A 2022 review of the UK’s supervisory regime found weaknesses in supervision that needed to be addressed by structural reform.
Alongside the SPSS route, the 2023 consultation had also considered three other potential supervision models:
- OPBAS+ – giving increased powers to the Office for Professional Body Anti-Money Laundering Supervision (OPBAS);
- PBS consolidation – reducing the current pool of PBSs; and
- Single AML supervisor (SAS) – shifting AML/CTF supervision responsibility to one public body, with the FCA, Gambling Commission and PBSs continuing to supervise relevant firms only for non-AML/CTF purposes.
Once the PBSs no longer have a formal AML/CTF role under the MLRs, OPBAS’ existing function will no longer be needed.
The date from which FCA will commence supervision of the professional services sector will be dependent on the availability of parliamentary time. HM Treasury will be consulting separately in November 2025 on the powers the FCA should have as supervisor.