UK Regulator’s Rising Trust Scores Offer Clues for Crypto Firms Awaiting Clearer Rules

Britain’s financial watchdog is winning over the very firms it polices, according to a new survey — a development that could carry weight for the cryptocurrency sector as it waits for the UK to finish building a dedicated regulatory framework for digital assets.

The Financial Conduct Authority’s latest annual survey of regulated firms, conducted jointly with the Practitioner Panel, found that confidence, satisfaction and trust in the regulator have all climbed over the past year. Some 79% of firms said they were highly satisfied with their relationship with the FCA, up from 74% previously, while 76% now rate the regulator as highly effective, a jump from 69%. Three-quarters of firms reported high levels of trust overall.

Those numbers matter beyond the usual banks, insurers and asset managers that make up the bulk of FCA-regulated business. The authority has, in recent years, taken on a growing supervisory role over cryptoasset businesses operating in the UK, from exchanges to custodians, and has made “Cryptoassets” one of its named focus areas for firms. How the industry perceives the FCA’s competence and fairness is likely to shape how smoothly that still-developing regime lands.

FCA chief executive Nikhil Rathi framed the improved scores as evidence that a year into the regulator’s current strategy, its approach is gaining credibility across “many areas” of its work — while acknowledging there is more to do, particularly on cutting red tape. The survey found firms were most confident in the FCA’s efforts to protect consumers, keep markets functioning well and safeguard the integrity of the UK financial system, with each of those measures scoring above 85%.

For crypto businesses specifically, consumer protection has been the FCA’s most visible priority to date. The regulator maintains a steady drumbeat of warnings about crypto investment scams, fake communications impersonating the FCA, and unauthorised firms promoting high-risk digital asset products. Its public-facing guidance repeatedly singles out cryptoassets as a category where consumers face elevated risk of fraud and total loss of capital, alongside pension scams and loan-fee fraud.

The survey also flagged a notable swing in how firms view the FCA’s secondary objective of supporting the international competitiveness and growth of the UK economy — understanding of that objective rose 27 percentage points, and confidence in its delivery rose 25 points. That objective, introduced in recent years, has been central to the UK’s pitch that it wants to be a serious hub for digital asset innovation rather than simply a jurisdiction defined by enforcement and warnings. Crypto firms and trade bodies have long argued that regulatory clarity, not just caution, is what will determine whether blockchain and digital asset businesses choose to set up in London or look elsewhere.

It’s worth being clear about what this survey does and doesn’t tell us. It is a broad measure of sentiment across all FCA-regulated sectors, not a crypto-specific study, and it does not break out separate satisfaction figures for digital asset firms or detail the substance of forthcoming crypto rules. The FCA has separately signalled that further guidance and rulebook changes affecting cryptoassets are in train as part of its wider simplification push, including efforts to strip out duplicated or outdated reporting requirements that currently apply to roughly 90% of regulated firms.

What the survey does suggest is a regulator attempting to recast its relationship with industry at a moment when digital asset oversight is becoming more, not less, central to its remit. Whether that improved standing translates into genuinely workable rules for crypto exchanges, stablecoin issuers and custody providers — and whether consumers see fewer scams as a result — will likely be the real test when the FCA’s next survey, and its crypto rulebook, both come due.