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The ninth edition of the UK’s Regulatory Initiatives Grid, published in December 2025, sets out the country’s financial services regulatory agenda for the next two years. In this piece, Vixio examines what the regulators have outlined in the multi-sector section of the latest regulatory grid, explains the likely impact of developments on financial institutions and suggests what the regulators’ stated priorities tell us about the direction of travel in the UK.

Africa has seen a boom in its payments industry in recent years, driven by rising demand for digital payments, B2B lending and other financial services for underserved customers. As payments firms have scaled, they have taken on roles that were once the preserve of the public sector and incumbent financial institutions.

In a clear indication that Ukraine is gaining momentum in its fight against financial crime regarding anti-money laundering (AML) failures, the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) announced the issuance of seven enforcement actions in December 2025 against a diverse range of financial institutions.

By granting organisations extra time to adapt to certain elements of the country’s overhauled anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML/CTF) framework, AUSTRAC is acknowledging the scale and complexity of the reforms.

The G7 Cyber Expert Group (CEG) anticipates a secure transition to post-quantum cryptography beginning as early as 2027, reshaping future compliance, operational resilience and supervisory expectations for payments providers.

The central bank’s new development concept permits tightly controlled crypto investment and foreign trade use while preserving a domestic payments ban, reshaping compliance exposure for payments firms with Russian-linked activity.

By putting the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025 (CLARITY Act) on hold, lawmakers have reinforced the constraints on traditional financial institutions’ participation in the crypto-asset space.

The decision rejecting Visa, Mastercard and Revolut’s challenge clears the way for the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) to cap interchange fees on outbound card-not-present (CNP) transactions involving UK merchants and European Economic Area (EEA) issuers.

The Treasury Select Committee’s report highlights gaps in accountability, stress testing and third-party controls, signalling that financial institutions should prepare for clearer rules and increased supervisory expectations.

The EU Data Act (Regulation (EU) 2023/2854), which entered into force on January 11, 2024 and has now entered its application stage, represents one of the most consequential regulatory interventions in Europe’s digital markets. Although framed as a horizontal piece of legislation that establishes a set of rules on data access and use that respects the protection of fundamental rights and delivers wide-ranging benefits for the European economy and society, its implications for the financial sector, particularly payments, banking and fintech, are considerable.