The Chancellor’s Mansion House address, Tuesday 14 July 2026: key policy announcements
Policy announcement | Summary | TheCityUK advocacy | Alignment with the recommendations in our ‘No time to lose’ report with PwC |
|---|---|---|---|
Wholesale Digital Markets Champion’s first report | Sets out a roadmap for coordinated action across government, regulators and industry to establish the UK as a global leader in tokenised wholesale financial markets. | We supported the work, with the City of London Corporation as secretariat, alongside industry partners and HM Treasury (HMT). The report reflects industry priorities on modernising market infrastructure, enabling innovation and strengthening competitiveness. | ✔ |
Financial Services AI Adoption plan | Provides a framework for responsible AI adoption in financial services, including a focus on agentic AI, payments, authentication, liability and consumer protection. | Aligned with our position that the UK should enable innovation through its principles-based regulatory framework, clear guidance, proportionate oversight and close government-regulator-industry collaboration. | ✔ |
Critical Third-Parties regime | Introduces direct regulatory oversight of the most systemically important technology providers supporting financial services, strengthening operational resilience. | We welcome the proportionate approach and will continue to engage to ensure implementation is practical, coordinated and innovation-friendly. | ✔ |
Reforming regulation, including through the Financial Services and Markets Bill | Introduces changes to the UK’s legislative and regulatory framework, including reforms to support a more proportionate, growth-focused regulatory environment. | We pressed for the Bill and our priority is that it fully delivers the intended key reforms, including reducing the burden of the Senior Managers and Certification Regime and preventing the Financial Ombudsman Service from acting as a quasi-regulator. | ✔ |
Bank capital and ring-fencing reform | The Chancellor referred to the Financial Policy Committee’s review of bank capital requirements and proposed reforms to the ring-fencing regime. | We support reforms that can unlock lending capacity, give banks greater flexibility to serve UK corporate clients and strengthen international competitiveness. | ✔ |
UK-US Transatlantic Taskforce for Markets of the Future | The recommendations focus on digital assets, stablecoins and capital markets, including progress towards shared UK-US approaches and a one-year industry workstream on tokenisation use cases. | Our US Market Advisory Group played a central role in gathering UK industry input for HMT and will seek to support the tokenisation workstream. | ✔ |
UK-EU relationship and bilateral trade | The Chancellor highlighted the UK-EU relationship, while the Financial Services Growth and Competitiveness Strategy update noted progress on bilateral trade and investment ties, including with Switzerland, the Gulf Cooperation Council, China and India. | We will continue to advance proposals from our UK-EU priorities report, focused on reducing friction, improving predictability and delivering shared European priorities. | ✔ |
Place-based growth and regional investment | Continues the government’s focus on economic clusters, devolution and connecting capital with regional growth priorities. | Through our regions and nations programme, we have worked with industry leaders, mayors, combined authorities, devolved administrations, the Office for Investment and the Strategic Investment Opportunities Unit to shape local growth plans and investable regional opportunities. | ✔ |
Retail investment | Reiterates the commitment to turn savers into investors through retail investment support, pensions reform, ISA reform, investment campaigns and capital markets reforms. | We have championed targeted support, shaped pensions and ISA reforms, provided evidence for a three-year listing relief from Stamp Duty, and continue to advocate full abolition of stamp taxes on UK shares. | ✔ |
Dematerialisation Action Taskforce implementation plan | Sets out implementation plans for dematerialisation, supporting modernisation of UK capital markets and progress towards tokenisation. | We welcomed the plan and played an active role in its development, while raising concerns that the timetable for moving all shares into an intermediated system by the end of this parliament may not be met. | Further action is required to expedite the implementation of tokenised markets and bolster the UK’s international competitiveness. |
Devolution and growth | Recognises devolution as a route to growth and partnership, with stronger local leadership supported by national coordination. | We have argued that business should be built into local decision-making from the outset and will engage on local growth plans, investment pipelines, skills partnerships and regional prosperity. | ✔ |
Financial Services Skills Compact | Launches a landmark agreement between government, the Financial Services Skills Commission, HM Treasury and firms to close skills gaps and invest in the sector’s workforce. | We supported – and are supporters of – the Compact and our ‘No time to lose’ report called for urgent, sustained investment in industry skills, particularly to build a tech-first workforce. | ✔ |