FCA Complaints Reporting: Is your firm ready for the new approach?

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is shaking things up in the world of financial services complaints reporting. Their latest consultation paper, CP25/13, proposes a significant overhaul, moving firms towards a more streamlined, insightful, and consistent approach.

For complaints managers, customer relations leads, and compliance professionals, this isn't just another regulatory hurdle. It's a clear signal to modernise existing systems, deepen alignment with the Consumer Duty, and embrace smarter tools to manage and report complaints.

Let's break down what's changing and how intelligent solutions can help you navigate this transition.

Why the FCA is updating complaints reporting now

Complaints data is a treasure trove of information, crucial for identifying market trends, spotting potential consumer harm, and assessing firm performance. However, the FCA's current complaints reporting framework hasn't seen a major update since 2015. This has led to:

• Fragmented reporting returns
• Inconsistent data taxonomies
• Inefficiencies for both firms and the regulator

CP25/13 aims to rectify these issues with a simpler, smarter model designed to:

• Reduce regulatory burden on financial services firms.
• Improve data quality and consistency across the industry.
• Strengthen the early detection of consumer harm by providing clearer insights.

The key changes coming your way

Get ready for some significant shifts in how your firm reports complaints:

• Single consolidated return: Say goodbye to five separate returns! They'll be replaced by one unified submission covering all relevant permissions.
• Standardised frequency: Reporting will transition to a consistent 6-monthly cycle, aligned with calendar periods (ending June 30th and December 31st).
• Modernised complaint categories: Outdated product and issue taxonomies will be replaced, drastically reducing reliance on the vague "Other" category.
• Consumer Duty and vulnerability insights: Firms will be required to capture and report complaints data that better aligns with Consumer Duty outcomes and provides deeper insights into the outcomes achieved by vulnerable customers.
• No more group-level reporting: All complaints data must now be submitted at the individual entity level, enhancing transparency and granularity of market-level complaints data.

The power of AI in complaints management

As firms prepare for these critical changes, the opportunity to integrate Artificial Intelligence (AI) into complaint handling has never been more relevant. This isn't about replacing human interaction but enhancing efficiency and accuracy.

Solutions like mycomplaints.ai can significantly support regulated firms by:

• Automating complaint classification: Automatically categorise incoming complaints against the FCA’s updated taxonomy, ensuring consistency and accuracy from the outset.
• Mapping to Consumer Duty outcomes: Intelligently connect complaints to Consumer Duty outcomes, even when customers don't explicitly reference them, providing robust compliance evidence.
• Identifying vulnerability characteristics: Support new regulatory expectations by identifying characteristics of vulnerability without the manual overhead, ensuring fairer outcomes.
• Generating real-time management information (MI): Produce immediate MI for internal reporting, timely escalations, and seamless FCA submissions.

This strategic integration of AI not only reduces operational workload but also significantly improves the quality and defensibility of your regulatory submissions – a crucial consideration in an environment where complaints data is both a compliance and reputational issue.

Tangible benefits for your team

Embracing these changes with intelligent automation can deliver clear benefits across your organisation:

• For Complaints Managers: Drastically cut time spent on manual coding and reclassifying cases, allowing you to focus on resolution quality and extracting valuable insights.
• For Compliance & Governance: Gain greater assurance that your FCA submissions are accurate, complete, and fully aligned with regulatory expectations.
• For CX Leaders: Access clearer, more actionable root cause data to drive genuine service improvements and confidently demonstrate Consumer Duty compliance.
• For IT & Data Teams: Seamlessly integrate new solutions with existing systems via APIs, reducing reliance on ad hoc, spreadsheet-based processes.

Timeline and your Call to Action

The consultation deadline for CP25/13 is July 24, 2025. Expected implementation is from 2026, with a 12-month bedding-in period.

This is a critical window to review not just how you report but fundamentally how you manage complaints end-to-end. If your firm is still heavily reliant on manual categorisation and regulatory mappings, now is the opportune moment to explore intelligent automation.

You can explore the full consultation paper and prototype return here: FCA CP25/13 – Improving Complaints Reporting

CP25/13 signals a new era for complaints reporting – one focused on actionable insight, consistent data, and delivering on consumer outcomes. AI tools offer a powerful way to rise to this challenge, freeing up resources and delivering smarter regulatory compliance.

Are you ready to future-proof your complaints reporting?