FCA Fines Database Guide
The FCA fines database contains all Financial Conduct Authority penalties issued since 2013 — over 350 enforcement actions totalling £4.9 billion. Users can search by firm name, filter by year, breach category, or penalty amount, and export data for compliance reporting. This guide explains how compliance professionals and risk managers can search and analyse FCA enforcement data effectively.
What is the FCA Fines Database?
The FCA fines database is a searchable collection of all enforcement actions taken by the Financial Conduct Authority. The database captures full penalty values in GBP, complete firm details including names and regulatory categories, breach categories describing the types of regulatory failures involved, date information showing when fines were issued, and links to official FCA final notices for further research.
How to Search the FCA Fines Database
Search by Firm Name
Enter any firm name to find all FCA fines issued to that company. Searching for "Barclays" returns all Barclays fines across different years and entities, "HSBC" displays HSBC enforcement actions including both the bank and related entities, and "Lloyds" shows Lloyds Banking Group penalties throughout the regulatory period.
Filter by Year
Select specific years to view FCA fines from that period, enabling comparison across different years and identification of enforcement trends. The database covers the full period from 2013 to the present, allowing users to track how regulatory priorities have evolved over more than a decade.
Filter by Breach Category
Find fines by type of regulatory failure, including anti-money laundering breaches, market abuse cases, systems and controls failures, client money violations, and treating customers fairly breaches. This filtering helps compliance teams benchmark their firm's risk areas against historical enforcement patterns. For a detailed look at AML enforcement specifically, see our FCA AML fines guide.
Filter by Amount
Search for fines within specific ranges to understand the distribution of penalty severity. Options include fines over £100 million representing the most serious cases, the £10-100 million range capturing significant but not headline-grabbing penalties, and fines under £10 million which represent the majority of enforcement actions.
FCA Fines Database Statistics
Total FCA Fines by Year
| Year | Total Amount | Number of Fines |
|---|---|---|
| 2014 | £1.47 billion | 45 |
| 2015 | £905 million | 40 |
| 2016 | £22 million | 15 |
| 2017 | £229 million | 25 |
| 2018 | £60 million | 18 |
| 2019 | £392 million | 28 |
| 2020 | £189 million | 22 |
| 2021 | £568 million | 31 |
| 2022 | £215 million | 24 |
| 2023 | £53 million | 19 |
| 2024 | £176 million | 27 |
| 2025 | £179m+ | 12+ |
FCA Fines by Breach Category
The distribution of FCA fines by breach category reveals clear regulatory priorities. AML failures account for approximately 25% of total fine value, reflecting the FCA's strong focus on financial crime prevention. Market abuse cases represent around 20% of fines by value, while systems and controls failures contribute 18%. Client money breaches account for 12% of total penalties, with conduct issues making up the remaining 25%.
Using the RegActions Dashboard
Our interactive dashboard provides visual analytics through charts showing fine trends over time and by category. Users can export data in CSV, Excel, and PDF formats for integration with internal reporting. Comparison tools enable year-on-year analysis to identify emerging patterns, while real-time updates ensure access to the latest enforcement actions as they are announced.
Search Workflows For Compliance Teams
The most useful FCA fines searches usually start with a practical question rather than a keyword. A compliance analyst checking peer exposure may start with a firm name, then move into breach categories and years. A board pack owner may start with a theme such as AML, Consumer Duty, market abuse, or systems and controls, then identify the largest comparable cases. A senior manager preparing for committee discussion may search individual accountability cases and then compare them with firm-level penalties.
| Workflow | Start with | Then use | Output |
|---|---|---|---|
| Peer review | Firm or competitor name | breach category and year filters | comparable enforcement cases |
| Board reporting | breach theme | largest penalties and recent notices | challenge questions and case examples |
| Control review | AML, CASS, market abuse, Consumer Duty | firm category and regulator filters | remediation themes |
| Horizon monitoring | latest year or recent actions | digest and watchlist flows | recurring updates |
How To Keep The Search Evidence Useful
FCA final notices are dense, and the headline fine rarely tells the whole story. When reviewing a result, capture the firm name, penalty value, date, breach category, relevant senior-management facts, affected products, and any quoted control failures. The strongest internal reports also link back to the official notice so readers can verify the source.
RegActions is designed to shorten this workflow. Use enforcement search for firm and theme discovery, FCA regulator intelligence for the wider FCA view, and board packs when the search needs to become a committee-ready summary.
When To Use A Watchlist Or Digest
Use a watchlist where a specific firm, competitor, or group entity matters. Use the weekly digest where the theme matters more than one entity. For example, an MLRO may watch peer banks while also subscribing to weekly enforcement updates for AML, sanctions, and payments-firm signals.
This distinction matters for retention. The most valuable RegActions user is not the person who reads one article and leaves; it is the person who turns a search into an ongoing monitoring habit.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this the official FCA fines database?
RegActions is not the FCA. It is an independent enforcement intelligence platform that organises public FCA final notices and related enforcement records so users can search, compare, and monitor them more easily. Users should still open the official FCA source notice where they need the legal source document.
What is the best first search?
Start with the firm, theme, or year behind the question. For example, search "Barclays" for a peer or group review, "AML" for financial crime controls, or "2025" for current-year reporting.
Official FCA Sources
The FCA publishes enforcement information through several official channels. Final Notices provide detailed findings for concluded cases — learn more in our FCA Final Notices explained article. Decision Notices set out the regulator's reasoning, Warning Notices indicate potential enforcement action, and the Annual Enforcement Report offers high-level statistics and strategic priorities. To understand the biggest penalties in the database, see our 20 biggest FCA fines of all time.