The Bank of England's supervision of financial market infrastructures - Annual Report 2024

Today (18 December) the Bank published its Financial Market Infrastructure Report. This report sets out the work undertaken over the past year in relation to financial market infrastructure to deliver the Bank’s financial stability objective and secondary innovation objective.

The financial market infrastructure firms (FMIs) supervised by the Bank offer services to individuals and businesses that are critical to the smooth operation of the UK financial system and the broader economy. These firms are used every day, whether we realise it or not, when we receive or make payments from our bank accounts, or when we buy goods and services. They also play a key role in helping manage and mitigate risk across financial markets. As a global financial centre, the smooth and safe functioning of these firms are critical not only to UK financial stability, but also to the health of the global financial system.

The report sets out how we have delivered against our statutory objectives over the last year, and how we plan to continue doing so next year. It reports against the use of our new powers and responsibilities under Financial Services and Markets Act 2023 (FSMA 2023), including how the Bank has delivered against its new secondary innovation objective and sets out how we have continued to deliver and develop effective regulation and supervision of FMIs.

In particular, this year’s report highlights the Bank’s work:

• implementing the enhanced regulatory regime following the approval of the FSMA 2023; and
• facilitating innovation through our work on stablecoins and the Digital Securities Sandbox.

Additional information

The Annual Report is part of a set of publications the Bank has released that provide transparency and accountability in relation to how it delivers its regulation and supervision of FMIs, helping to ensure they can play their important role in managing risk and allowing payments to be made safely in all states of the world. 

The further publications are:

• The Bank’s approach to cost benefit analysis (CBA) when making rules for central counterparties (CCPs) and central securities depositories (CSDs). This statement of policy (SoP) explains how we estimate costs and benefits as part of our policymaking process, and provides an overview of the role CCPs and CSDs play in ensuring a stable and resilient financial system, and the importance of maintaining an effective regulatory framework. The Bank welcomes feedback on the SoP by 30 September 2025.
• A consultation on operational incident and outsourcing and third-party reporting for FMIs. This reflects the high priority that the Bank places on FMIs’ operational resilience, and proposes a framework for high-quality and consistent reporting of the operational incidents and third-party arrangements that may have the greatest impact on financial stability. This consultation will close on 13 March 2025.

These publications follow on from the Bank’s consultation on proposed Fundamental Rules for FMIs and the Bank’s approach to supervising FMIs, published in November.  

Visit our explainers for more information on what FMIs are and the Bank’s role in supervising them.