By Sagar Shankaran, Founder of CallSphere
Navigate FCA calling rules for UK financial firms — from SYSC recording obligations to cold calling restrictions, TCPA equivalents, and enforcement trends.
Key takeaways
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) regulates approximately 42,000 financial services firms in the United Kingdom, and its rules on telephone communications are among the most prescriptive of any global regulator. Whether your firm provides investment advice, arranges deals, manages portfolios, or offers consumer credit, the way you use the telephone is subject to detailed regulatory expectations.
Post-Brexit, the UK's regulatory framework has diverged from MiFID II in several important areas. While many MiFID II principles remain embedded in UK law, the FCA has introduced its own requirements — most notably the Consumer Duty (effective July 2023) — that add new dimensions to calling compliance.
This guide covers the complete landscape of FCA calling compliance: recording obligations, cold calling rules, financial promotion standards, Consumer Duty implications, and the enforcement actions that illustrate where firms most commonly fall short.
The FCA's recording requirements are set out in SYSC 10A of the FCA Handbook. The rules apply to:
flowchart LR
CALLER(["Client or Lead"])
subgraph TEL["Telephony"]
SIP["Twilio SIP and PSTN"]
end
subgraph BRAIN["Financial Services AI<br/>Agent"]
STT["Streaming STT<br/>Deepgram or Whisper"]
NLU{"Intent and<br/>Entity Extraction"}
TOOLS["Tool Calls"]
TTS["Streaming TTS<br/>ElevenLabs or Rime"]
end
subgraph DATA["Live Data Plane"]
CRM[("CRM and Notes")]
CAL[("Calendar and<br/>Schedule")]
KB[("Knowledge Base<br/>and Policies")]
end
subgraph OUT["Outcomes"]
O1(["KYC pre-fill done"])
O2(["Funding instructions sent"])
O3(["Compliance officer<br/>escalation"])
end
CALLER --> SIP --> STT --> NLU
NLU -->|Lookup| TOOLS
TOOLS <--> CRM
TOOLS <--> CAL
TOOLS <--> KB
NLU --> TTS --> SIP --> CALLER
NLU -->|Resolved| O1
NLU -->|Schedule| O2
NLU -->|Escalate| O3
style CALLER fill:#f1f5f9,stroke:#64748b,color:#0f172a
style NLU fill:#4f46e5,stroke:#4338ca,color:#fff
style O1 fill:#059669,stroke:#047857,color:#fff
style O2 fill:#0ea5e9,stroke:#0369a1,color:#fff
style O3 fill:#f59e0b,stroke:#d97706,color:#1f2937
The recording obligation covers conversations that:
SYSC 10A.1.6R requires firms to retain recordings for a minimum of 6 months. However, the FCA can request that a firm retain recordings for up to 5 years, and in practice, most firms retain for at least 3 years because:
The FCA expects recordings to be:
The shift to remote and hybrid working has created significant compliance challenges. The FCA's expectations are clear:
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The FCA takes a restrictive approach to unsolicited calls (cold calling) in financial services. The rules vary by product type:
Prohibited cold calling:
Restricted cold calling (allowed only with specific conditions):
Key restrictions on permitted cold calls:
Any telephone call that constitutes a financial promotion must comply with the FCA's financial promotion rules (COBS 4):
For CFD and forex brokers specifically, the FCA requires:
The FCA's Consumer Duty (PS22/9) introduced a new overarching standard that significantly affects how financial firms conduct telephone communications. The Duty requires firms to act to deliver good outcomes for retail customers across four areas:
The Consumer Duty has changed call center operations in several concrete ways:
The FCA has been increasingly active in enforcing communication standards:
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Case 1: Recording failures at a wealth management firm (2024)
Case 2: Misleading cold calls by a consumer credit firm (2025)
Case 3: Consumer Duty breach by an insurance intermediary (2025)
The FCA's 2025-2026 business plan signals continued focus on:
An FCA-compliant calling operation requires:
Layer these process controls over your technology:
The SYSC 10A recording requirements specifically apply to MiFID investment firms and certain insurance intermediaries. Consumer credit firms are not subject to the same prescriptive recording rules. However, the FCA expects all regulated firms to be able to evidence their compliance with applicable rules, and call recording is the most robust way to do this. Many consumer credit firms record calls voluntarily for quality assurance, training, and dispute resolution — and the Consumer Duty's evidence requirements make recording practically essential even where not technically mandated.
The Telephone Preference Service (TPS) is a register of individuals who have opted out of unsolicited sales calls. Under the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR), firms must screen their calling lists against the TPS register at least every 28 days. However, you can call TPS-registered numbers if the individual has given specific, informed consent to receive calls from your firm. This consent must be documented and cannot be bundled into general terms and conditions. Your CRM should integrate with TPS screening services and automatically flag or block numbers on the register.
The FCA has unlimited fining power and has demonstrated willingness to impose significant penalties. Fines for communication-related breaches have ranged from hundreds of thousands to tens of millions of pounds. Beyond fines, the FCA can impose requirements (forcing firms to undertake s166 skilled person reviews at their own expense), public censure, restrictions on permissions, and in severe cases, cancellation of authorization. Individual senior managers can also be held personally accountable under the Senior Managers and Certification Regime (SMCR) if compliance failures occurred on their watch.
The FCA has not prohibited AI-driven calling, but all existing rules apply equally to AI-generated communications. The call must be recorded, the AI must deliver required disclosures and risk warnings, and the firm must be able to demonstrate that the AI interaction delivered a good customer outcome under the Consumer Duty. The FCA expects firms deploying AI in customer-facing roles to conduct thorough testing, maintain human oversight, and be able to explain how the AI reaches its outputs. Expect specific FCA guidance on AI in customer communications during 2026.
The FCA defines vulnerability broadly — it includes health conditions, life events (bereavement, job loss), low financial resilience, and limited capability (language barriers, cognitive difficulties). Train agents to recognize vulnerability indicators during calls: confusion about basic concepts, emotional distress, mentions of health problems or life difficulties, and repeated requests for clarification. When vulnerability is identified, agents should slow the pace, simplify language, offer to continue the conversation at a different time, and consider whether the interaction should be referred to a specialist team. Document all vulnerability identifications in the CRM and follow up to ensure the customer achieved a good outcome.
Written by
Sagar Shankaran· Founder, CallSphere
Sagar Shankaran is the founder of CallSphere, where he builds production AI voice and chat agents deployed across healthcare, hospitality, real estate, and home services. He writes about agentic AI, LLM engineering, and shipping voice agents that handle real calls in production.
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