The Financial Regulation Authority (FCA) received 281 new whistleblowing reports in Q4 2025, figures published by the regulator have shown.

This was down from 405 reports filed in Q3, and from 292 reports that the FCA received in Q4 2024.

Every whistleblowing report that the FCA receives will contain one or more allegations of wrongdoing, and the 281 reports in Q4 2025 consisted of 788 allegations in total. The most common allegation was over compliance (109), with fitness and propriety (99) and the culture of the organisation (67) the second and third most common.

“We assess every whistleblowing report we receive that falls within our remit, to inform our work and help us identify actual or potential harm,” the regulator stated. “This could be harm to consumers, to markets, to the UK economy or to wider society.”

The FCA acknowledged that “greater transparency” about the whistleblowing reports it receives is important and added that it is constantly trying to improve the information it makes public.

Priya Dave of law firm Corker Binning, who worked as a contentious regulation lawyer at the FCA, commented: “The FCA’s latest whistleblowing data shows a drop in the number of whistleblowing reports it received in Q4 2025 compared with both the previous quarter and the same period in 2024.

“This decline is unsurprising, given only 3% of whistleblowing reports in Q4 2025 resulted in what the FCA calls ‘significant action’. The high-stakes balance for potential whistleblowers is still very much tipped towards risk over reward and the FCA’s efforts to encourage whistleblowers to come forward have done little to address this.

“The looming question for the FCA is whether it will change its mind on not financially incentivising whistleblowers. To date, the FCA has kept its powder dry on this.”

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