The regulatory year ahead: what we are watching in 2026

The start of a year is a natural moment to look ahead at the rules and expectations shaping how we operate. This is not a prediction piece or a promise that any particular change will happen; it is an honest account of the themes we are watching in 2026 across financial conduct, data protection and wider business standards, and how we think about them as a lender to companies rather than to consumers. We share it in the spirit of transparency: you are entitled to know what is on our radar.

Where we sit, and why it shapes what we watch

Before looking forward, it helps to restate where we stand, because it determines which developments are most relevant to us. We lend to UK limited companies and limited liability partnerships for business purposes, to the company rather than to its director personally, with no personal guarantee. Lending to a body corporate sits outside FCA consumer-credit regulation under Article 60B of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Regulated Activities) Order 2001. This product is not covered by the Financial Ombudsman Service, the Financial Services Compensation Scheme or the Business Banking Resolution Service; after our internal complaints process, the final escalation is the courts.

That position does not make us indifferent to the consumer-credit world. On the contrary, we watch it closely, because expectations set there often shape what good lending looks like everywhere.

Financial conduct and fair treatment

The clearest theme of recent years has been a sustained regulatory focus on fair outcomes for borrowers — clear information before signing, sensible affordability assessment, and supportive treatment of customers in difficulty. Much of this is framed around consumers and sits inside the Financial Conduct Authority’s remit, which does not directly govern our business lending. But we treat those expectations as a benchmark to meet voluntarily, not a regime to dodge.

In practical terms, that means continuing to show every figure up front on the Key Information Sheet (KIS) and the Business Loan Agreement, being candid that short-term borrowing is expensive, and handling hardship with care. You can see how we approach decisions on our how we lend page, and how we deal with concerns through feedback and complaints. Where the consumer regime raises the bar on fairness, our instinct is to move with it rather than to point out that we are not bound by it.

Data protection and automated decisions

Data protection remains an active area. UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 continue to evolve through guidance, and the use of automated tools in decision-making — the territory of UK GDPR Article 22 — attracts steady attention. As lenders make more use of technology to assess applications quickly, the expectation that a person remains reachable for significant decisions is one we expect to stay firmly in focus.

We will keep our human-review route on declines, and keep our data practices readable, with the detail in our privacy notice. We also expect continued scrutiny of electronic marketing and cookies under the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, which simply reinforces our preference for clear, unticked consent and easy opt-outs.

Wider business standards

Beyond financial and data rules, we are watching the broader direction of business-conduct expectations — supply-chain transparency, anti-fraud, and the general drift towards firms being asked to show, not just assert, that they behave responsibly. Some of these duties apply only above size thresholds we have not reached; where that is so, we tend to adopt the underlying practice voluntarily anyway, as we already do with our modern slavery statement on our modern slavery page.

Fraud is a particular concern for the year ahead, because criminals impersonating lenders harm borrowers directly. We will keep investing in helping you tell a genuine approach from a scam; if anything ever looks wrong, check it against our contact details before acting.

Our commitment for the year

Our throughline for 2026 is simple and unchanged: be accurate about our regulatory status, hold ourselves to high standards whether or not the law compels them, and explain things plainly. We will not overstate the protections that apply to business lending, and we will not understate the responsibilities we choose to take on. For the most current picture of the standards we work to, see our transparency page, and for what we currently offer, our business loans page. We will report back honestly as the year unfolds.