- Growth

Renaissance at market speed: UK wholesale finance in 2026

Speeches First published:

26/02/2026

Last updated: 26/02/2026
Speech by Nikhil Rathi, FCA chief executive, at the Goldman Sachs EMEA Head of Trading conference 2026.

On this page

• Strength: the UK as a global trading hub
• Trust: market integrity, control, and firm role
• Delivery: what we've already changed and why it matters
• What's next
• Thinking bigger
• Closing

Speaker: Nikhil Rathi, chief executive
Event: Goldman Sachs EMEA Head of Trading conference 2026
Delivered: 26 February 2026
Note: This is a drafted speech and may differ from the delivered version.
Reading time: 8 mins

Key points

• The UK remains a leading global financial hub, and its strong fundamentals present significant opportunities to grow further.
• The FCA is delivering bold reform to support growth and competitiveness, while taking firm action on market abuse and operational failures that threaten trust and market integrity.
• In an increasingly fast-changing world, the UK must be ready for renewal at market speed – adapting, flexing and moving at pace to capitalise. Like all of you, we've been getting used to unprecedented levels of market volatility.

Just in the first few weeks of 2026: gold prices soaring above $5,000, global currency and sovereign debt markets seeing sharp movements, commodity markets doing extraordinary things – sometimes 10, 15% moves intraday.

I’ve spoken previously about predictable volatility - a now-familiar mix of macro uncertainty, a rapid succession of geopolitical events, the fast-moving frontier of technology, shifting liquidity conditions.

A curious combination of risk and opportunity coming through.

Our primary task is to ensure market integrity, the foundations of trust that underpin the UK's competitiveness.

We want to do that in a way that provides opportunity for our financial services industry, and for the UK to maximise our competitive advantages to tackle our growth productivity challenge.

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Strength: the UK as a global trading hub

And as we roll with the punches, we also shouldn’t sell ourselves short.

We gained ground last year - London just one point behind New York in the latest Global Financial Centres Index.

There is understandable focus on equities market share and listings, where we have delivered far-reaching regulatory reforms.

But on FX trading, international debt issuance, OTC derivatives, parts of commodities markets - we lead the global pack.

Also seeing, as one commentator recently described it, a 'quantitative trading renaissance'.

These aren’t flukes.

Market activity agglomerates in locations where execution is reliable, infrastructure is resilient, talent at all levels is strong, and the rulebook is credible, pragmatic and responsive to change.

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Trust: market integrity, control, and firm role

We must always keep those fundamentals in mind without complacency.

Fighting financial crime is a strategic priority.

We are stepping up action on market abuse, and on insider trading - an area notoriously difficult to prosecute.

We're bringing more prosecutions than we ever have, working with partners using the full breadth of our powers.

With a slew of positive outcomes in recent months. Convictions. Fines. Bans. Custodial sentences.

But even where there may be no malicious intent, operational weaknesses can become significant events.

We fined a Citigroup entity £27.7m for systems and control failures that allowed a trader to erroneously sell $1.4bn of equities in European markets, causing significant market disturbance.

So we will take action.

But market participants remain the first line of defence; we need you to have strong checks and controls in place, and to enforce them.

Surveillance that works at market speed. Escalation routes that function under pressure. Reporting that provides us with invaluable leads.

And governance that treats those controls as part of performance, not just operational overheads.

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Delivery: what we've already changed and why it matters

But integrity doesn’t mean inertia.

We are determined to make sure that our rules don't create unnecessary friction, lock in outdated structures, or push activity into less transparent places.

We are moving fast to make changes - in partnership with the market - delivering a broad programme of wholesale market reforms last year with more on its way.

A revised framework for commodities markets and position limits. A fixed income consolidated tape on its way. A rebalanced approach to transparency in fixed income and derivatives markets.

Removal of the bonus cap and more flexible remuneration rules. A new Public Offer Platform to make capital raising easier. New prospectus rules to reduce both friction and costs. PISCES - a new platform for trading private company shares.

Time will tell on IPO activity, where there are some positive signs, and which is driven by many factors beyond regulation.

What is evident, is that existing listed companies in the UK are taking advantage of more efficient execution – around 50 significant corporate transactions since the rules took effect.

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What's next

We want to keep moving quickly and acting boldly, but the next phase is harder.

There are some tough, contested points where different market participants have naturally different views and incentives.

Private credit. Transaction reporting and the right balance between sell-side and buy-side reporting. Payment for Order Flow.

On settlement, the UK will move to T+1 next October, aligned with major European markets. We have already started pushing further ahead, and are thinking about how to effectively operate and regulate market infrastructure that uses digital assets, tokenized securities and distributed ledgers.

All this is a big change from the status quo; let's prove the UK can deliver system-wide market infrastructure change.

But we hear concerns from some corners about sequencing, readiness, funding impacts, operational resilience.

There is divergence on a consolidated tape (CT) for equities - on contribution of data, data pricing, latency, revenue models and whether the CT genuinely reduces costs.

We are consulting comprehensively on those critical design questions.

We have opened up the discussion on market risk capital for investment firms in December – do we maintain the current approach, or develop something more tailored to UK investment firms?

We hear contrasting level playing field and risk arguments from major principal trading firms and large wholesale brokers.

We will be guided by evidence, not ideology. And as we weigh the evidence, we will always have competition and innovation in mind.

We will not shy away from making bold decisions where the case is made.

Recognising we will not always please everyone, and a lowest common denominator approach will not sustain UK market leadership.

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Thinking bigger

Even more so at a moment where we are reaching some crossroads on long-term direction.

We run a financial system based on international standards and rules – rules we've always played a big leadership role in shaping.

But the rules of the international order have clearly changed.

At TheCityUK’s conference in the summer, I asked – what kind of market do we want to be?

I am seeing growing thoughtfulness in industry about how we should go about our job.

Take AI.

Debates about potential winners and losers of AI are driving share prices ups and downs in subsector after subsector of financial services.

You are some of the biggest investors in technology in the UK. You know the practical reality: at market speed, you can't have a human approving every decision.

So the question becomes: what does good look like when you can't always have a human in the loop, or even able to understand why certain trading decisions are taken or strategies pursued?

I don’t think there's a one-size-fits-all approach to this. And we know with innovation there will be bumps in the road.

The answer will often need to be tailored to specific use cases. The controls you need for a trading algorithm are different from those you'd need for a chatbot.

But there are common aspects. We're seeing successful firms thinking about the risks and controls at all stages.

Beforehand: What are the key risks, and what guardrails do we need to mitigate them?

During: How are we monitoring outcomes to know when models behave unexpectedly? And what oversight and safeguards will mean we can respond quickly to put it right?

Afterwards: How can we avoid model drift?

No one organisation has all the answers yet. We're all still learning.

That's why we're doing extensive and proactive work with firms to inform our regulatory approach.

There are multiple routes for industry to engage with us: Innovation Pathways, our Regulatory Sandbox, our AI Supercharged Sandbox.

And through our AI Live Testing - specifically intended to get firms over the line to deployment in live markets.

One message for this room: we'd like to see more wholesale trading firms using those routes. You are under-represented relative to others, so please do engage.

The priority for us all has to be learning quickly, with the right guardrails, to safely scale what works and so maintain our competitive edge.

Let me say a few words about crypto.

Many of you are seeing the opportunities - trading volumes in crypto ETPs have grown considerably in the last couple of years. New products emerging all the time.

But there is widespread recognition that it’s a riskier form of investment. Volatile, difficult to value, with real security risks.

So we need a strong and sustainable framework in place that supports informed participation. On the risks, as well as potential gains.

We'll be setting out our crypto framework in early summer, before the regulatory gateway opens in September.

And we're actively supporting innovation - including on stablecoins, tokenisation of funds, and through lifting the ban on retail access to crypto ETNs.

But we have to be honest that this market is unlike any other. We may need to tweak our rules and develop new approaches at pace.

Like we did in October - the market and regulatory landscape had evolved, so we lifted the ban on retail access to certain crypto ETNs as a result.

So we will stay flexible, including considering where we might apply different approaches to wholesale firms than those directly serving consumers.

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Closing

I spoke earlier about a ‘quantitative trading renaissance’.

The actual Renaissance began in the 1400s and took 2 centuries to unfold.

Today, the reality of technology, competition and capital flows, means that we could find ourselves facing a renaissance every 2 years.

The UK needs to be ready for that, and we want to work with you to make sure we are.

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On this page

• Strength: the UK as a global trading hub
• Trust: market integrity, control, and firm role
• Delivery: what we've already changed and why it matters
• What's next
• Thinking bigger
• Closing