FCA confirms annual funding requirement rise of 10.7%

Thursday, 01 August 2024 08:27

The FCA has confirmed its Annual Funding Requirement (AFR) and regulated firm fees for 2024/25, with fee increases ranging from less than 1% to over 1,000%.

FCA fees for the A013 block (advisers, arrangers, dealers and brokers) will increase by an average of 9.8%, as reported by Financial Planning Today recently.

Smaller A013 firms - with turnover below £100,000 - do not pay fees due in the A013 block which are levied by the FCA only on revenue above £100,000.

There is a wide range of fee changes with the A019 General insurance distribution block seeing an increase of only 0.5% while the CMC Claims Management Companies block will see an increase of 1,329.7% after a rebate ended last year.

The A022 Principal firms and appointed representatives block will see an 8.6% increase.

Overall, the FCA’s AFR has increased in 2024/25 by 10.7%. The fee rate movements for each fee-block broadly reflect this percentage increase (adjusted for other factors) and the change in total tariff data reported by firms, the FCA said.

The table below, provided by the FCA, shows the AFR and fees for 2024/25 for each fee block and is reproduced by Financial Planning Today as a service for readers. It is also available on the FCA website.

Fee-Block	Tariff Base	Annual Funding Requirement (AFR)	AFR change from last year	Total tariff data change from last year	Rate change from last year	Explanations
A001 Deposit acceptors	Modified eligible liabilities	£96.2m	9.8%	-1.1%	10.9%	The AFR has increased by 9.8% which, combined with a 0.5% reduction in modified eligible liabilities, has resulted in a 10.4% increase in fee rates.
A002 Home finance providers and administrators	Number of home finance transactions (NOHFT)	£23.6m	9.9%	-8.5%	20.4%	With the AFR increasing roughly in line with the overal ORA increase, due to an increase of 9.9% increase in the AFR together with a reduction in tariff data has resulted in a 20.4% increase in the fee rates.
A003 Insurers - General	Gross written premiums (GWP)	£30.8m	9.7%	8.1%	1.3%	Although the AFR has increased by 9.7%, in line with the overall ORA increase, the rates have only increased by 1.3% due to a 8.1% increase in gross written premiums.
A003 Insurers – General	Best estimate liabilities (BEL)	£3.4m	9.7%	9.1%	-3.1%	Despite the AFR increasing roughly in line with the overall ORA increase of 9.7%, due to best eligible liabilities increasing by 9.1% and an over recovery from this fee-block in 2023/24, the rate has reduced by 3.1%.
A004 Insurers - Life	Gross written premiums (GWP)	£34.6m	8.7%	25.0%	-13.0%	Although the AFR has increased by 8.7% in line with the overall ORA increase, this increase has been offset by a 25% increase in gross written premiums resulting in a fee rate decrease of 13%.
A004 Insurers – Life	Best estimate liabilities (BEL)	£23.1m	8.7%	10.2%	-1.3%	Despite the AFR increasing by 8.7% in line with the overall ORA increase, due to best eligible liabilities increasing by 10.2%, the rate has reduced by 1.3%.
A005 Managing agents at Lloyds	Active Capacity (AC)	£0.3m	6.9%	2.6%	4.3%	The AFR has only increased by 6.9% as it contributes to less exceptional project costs than other fee-blocks. This increase in AFR is offset in part due to an increase of 2.6% in active capacity, resulting in the fee rates only increasing by 4.3%.
A007 Portfolio managers	Funds under management (FUM)	£59.1m	10.1%	1.9%	3.7%	The AFR has increased by 10.1% due to it contributing to the Advice Guidance Boundary Review cost in 2024/25. However, the fee rate has only increased by 3.7% due in part to an increase of 1.9% in funds under management and partly due to an over recovery in this fee-block in 2023/24.
A009 Managers and depositaries of investment funds, and operators of collective investment schemes or pension schemes	Gross income (GI)	£15.7m	9.9%	-1.6%	12.5%	Although this fee-block's AFR has increased roughly in line with overall ORA increase, due to a fall of 1.6% in tariff data the rate has increased by 12.5%.
A010 Firms dealing as principal	Number of traders (NOT)	£68.0m	9.2%	-7.2%	15.1%	Although this fee-block's AFR has increased roughly in line with overall ORA increase, due to a fall of 7.2% in tariff data the rate has increased by 15.1%.
A013 Advisers, arrangers, dealers and brokers	Annual income (AI-A13)	£103.0m	8.9%	-1.1%	9.8%	Although this fee-block's AFR has increased roughly in line with overall ORA increase, due to a reduction of 1.1% in tariff data the rate has increased by 9.8%.
A014 Corporate finance advisers	Annual income (AI-A14)	£18.7m	9.3%	-24.7%	45.3%	Although this fee-block's AFR has increased roughly in line with overall ORA increase, the rate has increased by 45.3% due to a significant 24.7% reduction in tariff data.
A018 Home finance providers, advisers and arrangers	Annual income (AI-A18)	£23.0m	9.3%	-10.3%	20.3%	Although this fee-block's AFR has increased roughly in line with overall ORA increase, due to a reduction of 10.3% in tariff data the rate has increased by 20.3%.
A019 General insurance distribution	Annual income (AI-A19)	£38.0m	9.3%	8.4%	0.5%	The AFR has increased roughly in line with overall ORA increase. However, this increase is partly offset by an 8.4% rise in tariff data resulting in only a 0.5% increase in the fee rates.
A021 Firms holding client money or assets, or both	Highest client assets (HCA)	£4.9m	9.6%	-9.7%	22.2%	The AFR has increased roughly in line with overall ORA increase. However, due to a reduction of 9.7% in tariff data the HCA rates have increased by 22.2%.
A021 Firms holding client money or assets, or both	Highest client money (HCM)	£14.6m	9.6%	-16.6%	29.8%	The AFR has increased roughly in line with overall ORA increase. However, due to a fall of 16.6% in tariff data the HCM rates have increased by 29.8%.
A022 Principal firms – appointed representatives	Number of appointed representatives (NOAR/NOIAR)	£7.1m	4.8%	-1.1%	8.6%	Flat fees for appointed representatives and introducer appointed representatives increased in line with ORA increase of 8.6%.
A023 Funeral plan intermediaries and funeral plan providers	Annual income (AI-FP)	£1.8m	9.2%	-31.7%	89.2%	Although the AFR has increased by 9.2%, the fee rate has increased by 89.2% due to a large under collection in this fee-block in 2023/24 following significant tariff data reductions by numerous firms after the fee rates were set for 2023/24 and a 31.7% overall reduction in tariff data.
A024 Access to Cash	Modified eligible liabilities (MEL)	£2.0m	n.a.	n.a.	n.a.	This is the first year for raising fees in the Access to Cash fee-block.
CMC Claims management companies	Annual turnover (TOCMC)	£2.3m	352.7%	9.3%	1329.7%	In 2023/24 claims management companies benefited from a £1.6m rebate resulting in the fee rates reducing by 89.3% that year. In 2024/25 these firms no longer benefit from the rebate and as such the AFR has increased from £0.5m in 2023/24 to £2.3m in 2024/25. Due to this increase in AFR the rates have increased significantly in 2024/25.
CC01 Credit-related regulated activities with limited permissions	Consumer credit annual income (CCI)	£11.2m	18.0%	-6.0%	8.4%	The AFR has increased by 18%. This is due to the minimum fee increases that were deferred in 2023/24 now happening in 2024/25 (please refer to Chapter 3 of CP24/6[1]), together with additional exceptional project costs in relation to Credit Information Market Study (CIMS) Interim Working Group (IWG). Despite the 18% increase in AFR, the rates have only increased by 8.4% in line with the CC02 fee rate increase.
CC02 Credit-related regulated activities	Consumer credit annual income (CCI)	£57.9m	18.0%	8.9%	8.4%	The AFR has increased by 18%. This is due to the minimum fee increases that were deferred in 2023/24 now happening in 2024/25 (please refer to Chapter 3 of CP24/6[1]), together with additional exceptional project costs in relation to Credit Information Market Study (CIMS) Interim Working Group (IWG). This increase in AFR is partly offset by a 8.9% increase in tariff data.

Notes: AFR: Annual funding requirement. ORA: Ongoing regulatory activities Tariff data: The total amount of tariff data reported for each fee-block. Not all tariff data contributes to the collection of the AFR as most fee-blocks have a minimum threshold below which firms do not pay fees in that fee-block. For example, in fee-block A013 the threshold is £100,000 of annual income. If a firm has less than this amount of annual income it will not pay a fee in the A013 fee-block. However, if its tariff data is above £100,000, then its fees are calculated based only on the income above £100,000. For more information of the above changes, 2024/25 Fees Policy Statement[2].

Source: FCA

Although the FSCS overall Annual Funding Requirement has decreased slightly for 2024/25 at £265m, down 1.7% from £269.7m in 2023/24, some FSCS classes will see increases in the funding requirements while other will see decreases.