Prudential regulation

The Bank of England prudentially regulates and supervises financial services firms through the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA).

Prudential regulation rules require financial firms to maintain sufficient capital and have adequate risk controls in place. Close supervision of firms ensures that we have a comprehensive overview of their activities so that we can step in if they are not being run in a safe and sound way or, in the case of insurers, if they are not protecting policyholders adequately.

The Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) at the Bank of England is responsible for this prudential regulation and supervision of around 1,500 banks, building societies, credit unions, insurers and major investment firms.

Find out more about what the PRA does

Latest news and publications

Latest Covid-19 updates

For the latest PRA Covid-19 updates see Our response to Coronavirus (Covid-19): regulatory measures for PRA firms

31 July 2020: We published CP12/20 ‘Capital Requirements Directive V (CRD V)’ . This CP is relevant to banks, building societies, and PRA-designated investment firms. Responses are requested by Wednesday 30 September 2020.

Update 23 July 2020: We published the Enforcement Decision Making Committee (EDMC): 2019/20 Report, which includes information about the EDMC’s activities between August 2018 and end-February 2020. To find out more, please visit the EDMC page.

Update 21 July 2020: Jointly with the Bank and FCA, we published a consultation paper setting out proposed changes to the joint scheme for handling complaints against the regulators themselves (as opposed to complaints against regulated firms). The paper proposes a new version of the scheme to simplify its wording and make it more accessible to its main users – consumers and small businesses – as well as others.

Update 7 July 2020: We published a PRA statement on Libor transition and PRA resolution-related rules which outlines our view on the implications of Libor transition for contracts in scope of the Contractual Recognition of Bail-In and Stay in Resolution Parts of the PRA Rulebook.

Update 18 June 2020: We published the PRA Annual Report 2019/20 which includes information about our activities for the year ended 29 February 2020, and also contains the:

  • Annual report of the PRC to the Chancellor of the Exchequer;
  • Report on certain aspects of ring-fencing following its implementation on 1 January 2019; and
  • Annual Competition Report (June 2020).

To find out more, please visit the PRA Annual Report 2019/20 page.

Readers may also wish to refer to the Bank of England Annual Report and Accounts - 2020 - also published today - which contains the Bank’s financial and other disclosures in respect of its activities as the PRA.

As part of our commitment to streamline the publication of our reporting obligations, we also published the:

For the first time the Bank has published a report on its climate-related financial disclosure, which sets out its approach to managing the risks from climate change across its entire operations, and the steps taken to improve the Bank’s understanding of these risks. This forms part of the Bank’s work under its strategic goal on climate change. It reflects the importance that the Bank attaches to climate-related risk disclosure, and the high standards that it expects both of itself, and the firms it regulates.

PRA publications

Consultations papers, policy statements, supervisory statements and statements of policy can be viewed individually by following the links below. Policy statements are published on the same page as the accompanying consultation paper

This page was last updated 12 August 2020
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