AML oversight expands to 60,000 legal and accounting entities
The Financial Conduct Authority will assume anti-money laundering supervision of 60,000 legal and accountancy firms in late 2028. Enforcement director Steve Smart announced the intelligence-led approach at the Law Society Economic Crime Conference on September 17, 2026.
Sixty thousand firms join supervisory scope
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is preparing to take over anti-money laundering supervision for 60,000 entities in the legal and accounting sectors in late 2028.
Speaking at the Law Society Economic Crime Conference, Steve Smart highlighted that fraud now accounts for nearly half of all crime in England and Wales, with over £100 billion laundered annually through the UK.
The regulator plans to apply an intelligence-led model rather than uniform rules across professional services.
To focus resources on high-risk targets, the authority supported raising the Suspicious Activity Report threshold to £3,000 and processes over 56 million data records each day using analytical tools.
Intelligence tools meet professional partnerships
Smart addressed industry concerns regarding whether a financial conduct regulator can oversee law and accounting partnerships.
The FCA collaborates with the National Crime Agency through the data fusion programme and relies on the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act for inter-firm intelligence sharing.
Smart pointed to Annex 1 firms, where the FCA tightened scrutiny on complex lending and parent controls.
“Our focus is on ensuring a firm's core anti-money laundering controls are effective,” Smart said.
Scale without sector fluency
Absorbing 60,000 entities will severely test the regulator's capacity beyond its traditional banking remit.
Data analytics cannot fully substitute for genuine familiarity with legal and accounting business models.
Success hinges on whether the watchdog can target criminal enablers without overburdening compliant firms.
Source: Financial crime: protecting the hive
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