The FCA has signalled it may rewrite payments regulation to accommodate agentic AI, marking the regulator’s most concrete policy commitment to the technology to date
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) may rewrite payments regulation to accommodate agentic AI, the regulator has indicated in its 2026 Payments Regulatory Priorities report.
Published today (March 25), the report states the FCA will consider “whether change or development of regulation is needed to support agentic AI payments,” a notable step beyond its established position of applying existing frameworks to emerging technologies rather than designing new rules around them.
Current payment services rules were not written with autonomous systems in mind, and questions around consent, liability and accountability when an AI agent initiates or routes a transaction on a customer’s behalf remain unresolved across the industry – and, it now appears, on the FCA’s own policy agenda.
While the FCA has previously insisted that the Senior Managers and Certification Regime (SM&CR) and Consumer Duty frameworks are sufficient to govern AI-driven decisions, this may not be the case for agentic AI.
Per the Payment Services Regulations 2017, initiating a payment requires explicit customer consent – a requirement designed for humans making deliberate decisions. Existing provisions for standing payment authorities offer a partial framework, but how that maps onto an AI agent acting autonomously across multiple contexts remains an open question.
Addressing it now feels important, with major UK lenders including NatWest and Lloyds deep into running agentic AI pilots.
This marks the first first time the regulator has named agentic payments as a live policy question in a formal priorities document, so while no rules have yet changed, it certainly marks a shift in tone. Payment firms will be watching for whether a consultation follows.
The PSR modernisation work already underway gives the FCA a natural vehicle for any rule changes. The regulator has already confirmed it is working with the Treasury to future-proof payment services regulation more broadly, which means agentic AI payments could be folded into that process rather than addressed in isolation.
Matthew Long, Director of Payments and Digital Assets at the FCA, said: “The payments sector continues to evolve at pace, from open banking to new digital payment methods. We’re working closely with industry so innovation happens safely and delivers good outcomes for consumers and businesses.
“By setting out our priorities clearly, we want firms to understand where to focus their efforts – helping to deepen trust, rebalance risk and support sustainable growth.”
Stablecoins: Sandbox cohort and a trade roundtable
The FCA will hold a trade payments roundtable in May, following a stablecoin tech sprint this month covering retail payments, cross-border transactions, e-commerce and business-to-business use cases.
The roundtable is the next step in a policy process that has been building since late 2025, when the regulator launched a dedicated stablecoin cohort within its Regulatory Sandbox. Monee, ReStabilise, Revolut and VVTX were selected to test issuance under proposed rules.
Final policy statements on the broader cryptoasset regime, including stablecoin issuance rules, are expected later in 2026. The FCA will work alongside the Bank of England and the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) to manage firm transitions between regimes as the regulatory perimeter expands.
The FCA’s open finance roadmap is also due by the end of March, with the framework for the first scheme targeted by the end of 2027.
Safeguarding and Consumer Duty
Not all of the report’s messages are forward-looking. The FCA’s Safeguarding Supplementary Regime (rules governing how firms must protect customer funds) comes into force in May 2026, with the regulator warning that some firms still lack robust practices.
Electronic money institutions safeguarded approximately £26bn in 2024, up from £11bn in 2021, while payment institutions safeguarded an estimated £6bn per day – a scale that perhaps justifies the FCA’s concerns about persistent weaknesses.
On the FCA’s Consumer Duty, the regulator singles out transparency around international money remittance pricing and the treatment of consumers in vulnerable circumstances as areas where firms continue to fall short. The FCA says it will take action against firms that fail to close those gaps.
