The GRC Navigator

The FCA opened CP26/18 on 9 June 2026, consulting on responsible-lending changes to help creditworthy consumers who are currently shut out of suitable mortgages, with responses due by 28 July 2026. A minor amendment on 12 June clarified the treatment of partial settlements on credit records. This is the responsible-lending strand of the wider Mortgage Rule Review.

• Who it reaches: Borrowers with variable or irregular income, older borrowers, and those with past credit difficulties are the explicit targets of the proposed flexibility.
• What changes: Interest-only and part-and-part, retirement interest-only, foreign currency loans, credit-impaired lending and bridging all fall within scope.
• What does not: The FCA keeps affordability and responsible-lending duties intact, so firms still must evidence that a mortgage is affordable.

The FCA published its fifty-second Quarterly Consultation, CP26/17, in June 2026, with comments on Chapters 2 to 7 due by 13 July 2026. Quarterly papers rarely make headlines, but they are where consequential detail is quietly settled. This edition spans sustainable finance, fees and redress, prudential policy, funds and asset management, consumer investments distribution and reporting.

• Chapter 5 is the one to read: The funds and asset management chapter is led by the FCA’s funds policy team and touches the COLL and FUND sourcebooks that govern authorised fund managers directly.
• Prudential in Chapter 4: Prudential policy amendments carry implications for MIFIDPRU firms managing their own regulatory capital positions.
• Short window: The 13 July deadline gives firms roughly four weeks, so compliance teams should triage relevance now rather than at month-end.

On 8 June 2026 the FCA warned consumers about misleading car finance money tips adverts circulating on social media, paid promotions from claims management companies and law firms dressed up as independent advice. It confirmed two live enforcement investigations, into The Claims Protection Agency Limited and Consultation Claims Limited, the latter having been notified on 11 May 2026.

• A joint taskforce: The FCA, Solicitors Regulation Authority, Information Commissioner’s Office and Advertising Standards Authority have coordinated since 30 March 2026 to attack poor CMC and law-firm conduct.
• A market study: MS26/2, the claims management services market study, invited comment by 19 June 2026, with information requests to firms beginning the same month.
• Scale of intervention: The FCA reports over 1,000 misleading adverts removed or amended and more than 28,000 consumers freed from contracts, with three CMCs cutting fees.

The PRA’s consultation on modernising the liquidity policy framework, CP5/26, closed for responses on 17 June 2026. The paper proposes to update and streamline liquidity requirements for banks and building societies, part of a broader post-Basel effort to make prudential rules more proportionate without weakening resilience.

• Who it binds: Deposit-takers of all sizes, with particular relevance to smaller firms weighing the cost of liquidity reporting against their risk profile.
• Direction of travel: Modernisation and proportionality are the PRA’s watchwords for 2026, echoing the same efficiency drive running through its supervision reforms.

The PRA’s CP6/26 on high loan-to-income mortgage lending, published on 1 April 2026, remained open through the fortnight and closes on 1 July 2026. It sits alongside the FCA’s own mortgage work, and the two regulators are moving in tandem on housing-market access as government growth objectives press on both.

• Macroprudential angle: LTI flow limits are a Financial Policy Committee tool, so this consultation connects prudential lending policy to system-wide stability judgements.
• Coordinated timing: The PRA’s July close runs just ahead of the Financial Stability Report on 7 July, which will frame the FPC’s current view on household resilience.

Partners Group launched two open-ended private markets funds aimed at individual investors, reported on 11 June 2026, extending the democratisation of private assets into UK and European wealth channels. The vehicles use an evergreen, open-ended structure designed to give retail-adjacent investors continuous access to private equity and private markets exposure.

• Structure: Open-ended and evergreen, the design that has become the industry’s preferred route into the wealth channel.
• Audience: Individual investors, the segment every large private markets manager is now racing to reach through platforms and advisers.
• Context: The launch lands as UK policy actively encourages retail access to private assets through the LTAF regime and the wider tokenisation agenda.

Ares Management closed Ares Private Credit Fund VI at a record 34 billion dollars, reported by Private Equity Wire as one of the largest direct-lending vehicles ever raised. The fund targets senior secured loans and subordinated debt for middle-market companies across North America and Europe, and drew commitments from pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, insurers and family offices.

• Scale: At 34 billion dollars the raise underlines that institutional appetite for private credit remains intense even as retail flows wobble.
• European reach: The mandate spans Europe, keeping the vehicle firmly relevant to UK borrowers and to the private-credit exposure sitting in UK portfolios.

Wealthy investors sought to withdraw more than 20 billion dollars from private credit funds in the first quarter of 2026, according to Financial Times data reported by Private Equity Wire, the clearest sign yet that the asset class is meeting genuine redemption pressure. Managers split on their response: some, including Blackstone and Oaktree, allowed redemptions above standard quarterly caps, while Apollo, Ares, Blue Owl, HPS and Morgan Stanley held their limits to protect remaining investors.

Separately, a Reuters analysis of 51 business development companies found aggregate unrealised losses reaching 2.35 percent of net asset value in the first quarter, the steepest quarterly decline since mid-2022. Underlying loan performance is described as largely stable, but the direction of unrealised marks matters for how boards think about valuation governance.

• Gating in practice: The redemption wave is the first real demonstration of how private credit liquidity tools behave when investors actually pull.
• Valuation scrutiny: Rising unrealised losses put private-market valuation practices, already a supervisory focus, under sharper board attention.

New hedge fund formation reached a four-year high in early 2026 as investors positioned for volatility, according to Hedgeweek, with allocators decisively returning to emerging managers after a cautious 2025. Two-thirds of allocators committed capital to emerging managers last year and plan to do so again, a reversal that is reshaping the launch environment.

• Emerging-manager revival: Capital is flowing back to first-time and boutique managers, though access to allocators remains the binding constraint rather than capital itself.
• Fee realignment: Newly launched funds continue to price management fees competitively while lifting performance-linked incentives to align with investor expectations.