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Financial Advisory × Compliance — United Kingdom · published 2026-05-26 · methodology v2.1

FCA withdrawal of pre-Consumer Duty Dear CEO letters — FS25/2

RLB-F-GB-FCA-CONSUMER-DUTY-PS22-9-Q013
What the RLB Specialist Panel found

6. FCA withdrawal of pre-Consumer Duty Dear CEO letters — FS25/2

  • Question (paraphrased to protect IP): Has the FCA withdrawn any pre-Consumer Duty Dear CEO letters following implementation, and if so how many?
  • Source regulation: Consumer Duty (PS22/9 + PRIN 2A), Financial Conduct Authority (Regulator portal: https://www.fca.org.uk)
  • What AI assistants typically say: Multiple AI tools gave divergent but both incorrect responses. One fabricated two separate withdrawal events — around 90+ Dear CEO and portfolio letters retired in April 2025, and a further tranche of multi-firm and thematic reports retired in August 2025 — with no reference to the relevant FCA document. The other stated it could not provide a verified count or list, claiming the search results did not identify a definitive public record of how many letters had been withdrawn.
  • What the regulator actually says: Via FS25/2 (March 2025), the FCA removed more than 90 pre-Consumer Duty Dear CEO letters and cleared over 100 old multi-firm reports.
  • Why the AI went wrong: Both AI responses failed to identify FS25/2 as the relevant document. One tool filled the gap by fabricating plausible-sounding dates and volumes across two invented events, while the other acknowledged uncertainty but was unaware that the FCA had published a specific statement with precise figures. In practice a Compliance team relying on the fabricated version would hold incorrect information about the timing and scope of the FCA's supervisory housekeeping.
  • Cited source(s):
  • https://www.fca.org.uk/news/news-stories/fca-simplifies-supervisory-letters — Pretextual
  • https://www.fca.org.uk/news/news-stories/next-steps-consumer-duty-rule-review — Pretextual
Impact for this audience

A Compliance team that holds incorrect information about the FCA's Dear CEO letter withdrawal programme — including fabricated dates and a misunderstanding of which document governs the withdrawal — may fail to update its supervisory correspondence register accurately, treat withdrawn letters as still live expectations, or brief the business incorrectly on the current supervisory landscape. Where the firm retains policies or procedures anchored to Dear CEO letters that are no longer in force, it may be applying outdated supervisory expectations alongside current Consumer Duty obligations, creating internal inconsistency. The FCA can form a view about a firm's supervisory awareness from how accurately it tracks changes to the regulatory framework.

References — raw findings (per AI model)
This finding also affects
← Previous finding Finding 5. Fair value assessment — quantification of non-monetary benefits Next finding → Finding 7. FCA senior official statements on first-year Consumer Duty compliance
Cite this finding

Each finding has a stable Citation ID (RLB-F-… for aggregated case-study findings, RLB-H-… for raw per-model hallucinations) — like a DOI, the ID always resolves to the canonical finding even if URLs change.

Plain text 
RegLeg Specialist Panel (2026). "FCA withdrawal of pre-Consumer Duty Dear CEO letters — FS25/2 — Financial Advisory × Compliance — United Kingdom." Citation ID: RLB-F-GB-FCA-CONSUMER-DUTY-PS22-9-Q013. RegLegBrief AI Hallucination Research, published 2026-05-26. https://reglegbrief.com/audiences/sectors/gb/financial_advisory/compliance/finding/GB-FCA-GB-001-CONSUMER-DUTY-PS22-9-v1-013/
APA 7th edition 
RegLeg Specialist Panel. (2026). FCA withdrawal of pre-Consumer Duty Dear CEO letters — FS25/2 [Hallucination finding RLB-F-GB-FCA-CONSUMER-DUTY-PS22-9-Q013]. RegLegBrief AI Hallucination Research. https://reglegbrief.com/audiences/sectors/gb/financial_advisory/compliance/finding/GB-FCA-GB-001-CONSUMER-DUTY-PS22-9-v1-013/
Bluebook / OSCOLA (US + UK legal) 
RegLeg Specialist Panel, FCA withdrawal of pre-Consumer Duty Dear CEO letters — FS25/2 [RLB-F-GB-FCA-CONSUMER-DUTY-PS22-9-Q013], RegLegBrief AI Hallucination Research (May 26, 2026), https://reglegbrief.com/audiences/sectors/gb/financial_advisory/compliance/finding/GB-FCA-GB-001-CONSUMER-DUTY-PS22-9-v1-013/.
BibTeX 
@misc{reglegbrief_RLB_F_GB_FCA_CONSUMER_DUTY_PS22_9_Q013,
  author    = {RegLeg Specialist Panel},
  title     = {FCA withdrawal of pre-Consumer Duty Dear CEO letters — FS25/2},
  year      = {2026},
  publisher = {RegLegBrief AI Hallucination Research},
  note      = {Hallucination finding Citation ID: RLB-F-GB-FCA-CONSUMER-DUTY-PS22-9-Q013},
  url       = {https://reglegbrief.com/audiences/sectors/gb/financial_advisory/compliance/finding/GB-FCA-GB-001-CONSUMER-DUTY-PS22-9-v1-013/}
}
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