Update, 21 August 2026: the consultation closes today. The FCA’s CP26/24 page still carries the instruction “Send us your feedback by 21 August 2026”, so today is the last day responses are accepted. Nothing in the proposals has changed since publication on 2 July.
What happens next. The FCA says it intends to publish a policy statement with final rules by the end of 2026, and that it “will continue to engage with a wide range of stakeholders during and after the consultation period”. That policy statement is the thing to watch: it is where the proposals below either become rules or get changed. The dates further down this article, including the June 2027 cash-interest requirements and the 8 June 2027 CCI deadline, are unaffected by today.
Educational, not advice. This article explains a live Financial Conduct Authority consultation on how investment costs are disclosed. It is general information, not personal financial advice. Savvy Investor Guide is not authorised or regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Nothing here tells you which platform or adviser to use.
What this article covers: what the FCA has proposed in CP26/24, what a platform or adviser would have to show you that it does not show today, why investment trust costs are being kept out of the headline figure, the rule on cash interest, and the dates, which are less tidy than most coverage suggests.
What it does not cover: which platform is cheapest, how to compare specific providers, or what any of this means for your own portfolio. It also does not cover pensions in any depth, because the FCA has proposed broad exemptions for them and they are governed by a separate part of its rulebook.
In short
- CP26/24 ran from 2 July to 21 August 2026. The FCA invited responses from individual investors as well as firms. Final rules are intended by the end of 2026.
- It would drop the “cumulative effect of costs” illustration that firms currently show before you buy, which the FCA says is done so inconsistently that it can mislead.
- In its place, firms would show total costs in pounds and pence as well as a percentage, personalised to the amount you are investing.
- Investment trust costs stay out of the single headline figure, but must still be disclosed separately with an explanation. This settles a long argument in the UK market.
- Firms would be barred from both charging a fee on your cash and keeping the interest on it, a practice the FCA calls double dipping.
- The FCA’s own evidence for why this is needed: 30% of non-advised platform users say they do not know what they are charged, and a review found only 6% of pre-sale disclosure documents were written in plain English.
- Nothing changes for you yet. Final rules are expected by the end of 2026, and firms would have until around June 2028 to move across.
There is a question that ought to be simple and is not: what does it actually cost you to hold your investments?
Most people using an investment platform could tell you roughly what the platform fee is. Fewer could add the fund charge to it. Almost nobody could give you a single number, in pounds, covering everything they pay in a year. The FCA has now put a figure on that gap, and it comes from its own research rather than from anyone with a case to make.
Our 2024 Financial Lives Survey found that 30% of non-advised platform users said they did not know how much they are charged for investing on their platform.
FCA, CP26/24, paragraph 2.3
On 2 July 2026 the regulator published CP26/24, Simplifying Consumer Investment Disclosures. It closes on 21 August 2026. This is what it proposes.
The illustration that is being scrapped
Today, before you buy, a firm has to show you an illustration of the cumulative effect of costs on your returns. It sounds useful. The problem is that the rules never said how to do it.
The FCA is blunt about the result in its own cost-benefit analysis:
the rules do not prescribe a methodology, leading to inconsistent implementation. Some firms present costs only over one year, whilst others use arbitrary growth assumptions, which may suggest this is a prediction or guarantee of performance.
FCA, CP26/24, Annex 2, paragraph 21
So one firm shows you a single year and another shows you a decade of assumed growth, and you cannot compare the two. Worse, a growth assumption sitting inside a costs document can read as a forecast, which it is not.
The proposal is to remove that illustration both before and after you buy, and instead require firms to show, in ongoing reporting, how costs have actually affected your returns. Not a projection of what they might do. What they did.
What you would see instead
The replacement is less clever and more useful: a total, personalised to what you are investing, expressed two ways at once.
we propose that firms should be required to present costs on a personalised and annualised basis, displaying them as a percentage and as a pounds and pence figure based on the consumer’s investment amount.
FCA, CP26/24, paragraph 2.17
The same requirement applies after the sale, in your regular statements: the total you have actually paid, in pounds and pence and as a percentage.
The FCA has not prescribed a template. Firms keep control of layout and can add detail or layer information behind a summary. What is prescribed is the pounds-and-pence figure alongside the percentage, which is the part that makes two providers comparable.
The worked example in the paper, for someone putting £10,000 into a fund, itemises the annual platform fee, the fund’s ongoing charge and the total, each as both a percentage and a cash figure, with one-off entry costs, transaction costs and any performance fee listed separately underneath. That is close to what a reasonable person would draw on the back of an envelope if you asked them to design it, which is a point in its favour.
Investment trusts: the argument that just ended
If you hold investment trusts, this is the section that matters. One wrinkle first, before you go looking for it in the paper.
The FCA never uses the phrase “investment trust” in CP26/24. It uses the technical term “closed-ended investment funds”, abbreviated to CEIFs, which is the category investment trusts sit in. Search the document for “investment trust” and you will find nothing, which has confused more than one reader.
The substance: their costs are kept out of the single aggregated total, and disclosed separately instead.
We propose that the ongoing costs of CEIFs, which are deducted from the Net Asset Value (NAV) of the fund and are therefore borne indirectly, should also not be added together with other ongoing costs. These should be disclosed separately, with an explanation of how they work, consistent with the CCI framework.
FCA, CP26/24, paragraph 2.15
The reasoning is that an investment trust’s running costs come out of the company’s own assets before the share price is struck, so they hit you differently from a platform fee taken from your account. Adding the two together produced a number that looked like a charge you were paying twice.
The trust sector fought this for years. The FCA records the opposition plainly, noting that aggregation “was strongly opposed by the CEIF sector due to the different way these costs impact investors’ returns”, and says it considered folding the costs into the headline figure and decided against it.
The Association of Investment Companies responded the same day the paper landed. Its chief executive, Richard Stone:
This is a win for consumers and investment companies. Consumers will have helpful cost information so they can make better investment decisions. For investment companies, these rules promise to end misleading cost disclosures. They also remove a barrier to wealth managers investing in investment companies.
Richard Stone, AIC, 2 July 2026
He also called it “the beginning of the end of a long industry campaign on cost disclosures”, which is a fair description of how long this has run.
One thing to be clear about, because the shorthand gets it wrong: investment trusts are not exempt from cost disclosure. Their costs must still be shown, itemised, with an explanation. They are simply not folded into the single headline percentage.
The cash rule, which is quietly the most direct change
Buried in the list of proposals is one that costs firms money rather than paperwork. Where you hold cash in an investment account, the FCA proposes to require clear disclosure of the interest you will receive and any fee you pay on that cash, and then to write into the rulebook something it has so far only expressed in a letter:
We are also codifying a requirement that firms do not both charge fees and retain interest on cash holdings (double dipping) as set out previously in our 2023 Dear CEO letter.
FCA, CP26/24, paragraph 1.17
A supervisory letter is a strong hint. A rule is enforceable. That is the whole difference here, and it is the proposal most likely to show up in what you are actually paid on idle cash.
Who this applies to, and who escapes it
The proposals reach firms doing MiFID business, insurance distribution business, and other designated investment business. In practice that is platforms, advisers, wealth managers and product manufacturers dealing with retail clients.
Two carve-outs matter.
Pensions are largely out. The FCA says it expects the rules to apply across investments business “with broad exemptions for pensions”, which are governed elsewhere in the rulebook. If your main exposure to investment charges is through a workplace pension, this consultation is not really about you.
Professional clients get a lighter regime. Firms would be able to give a professional client either the full retail-style disclosure or whatever that client agrees is adequate. The detailed prescription is aimed at retail investors, which is the right way round.
The dates, and why most coverage gets them wrong
You will see 8 June 2027 quoted as the date everything changes. That is not what it is.
8 June 2027 is when the Consumer Composite Investments regime becomes mandatory. That is the separate reform, finalised in December 2025, which replaced the old PRIIPs and UCITS key information documents with a new product summary. CP26/24 is the exercise of lining up the cost-disclosure rules with that regime. The two are related. They are not the same thing.
The sequence the FCA has actually set out:
- 21 August 2026: the consultation closed to responses.
- By the end of 2026: the FCA intends to publish a policy statement with final rules.
- Around the same time: the new cost-disclosure rules come into force, but firms may keep using the current rules during a transition.
- June 2027: the cash-interest disclosure requirements come in.
- 8 June 2027: the CCI regime becomes mandatory and the old key information documents are retired.
- Around June 2028: the transition ends and the new disclosure regime applies to everyone.
So a diligent firm might show you the new format in late 2026. A slower one has until 2028. For roughly eighteen months, two providers could be describing their charges under different rulebooks, which is an awkward period for anyone trying to compare them.
Responding, if you want to
Consultations are not restricted to firms. CP26/24 lists consumers and consumer groups among those it is aimed at, and the FCA’s own response instructions anticipate individuals: if you reply in an individual capacity, it says, your name will be published.
While the consultation was open, responses went through the form on the FCA’s website, by email to cp26-24@fca.org.uk, or by post to the Consumer Investments Distribution Policy Team, Financial Conduct Authority, 12 Endeavour Square, London E20 1JN. The deadline was 21 August 2026 and the window has now closed.
What to make of it
Cost disclosure has a long history of getting more elaborate without getting clearer. The instinct to show investors a modelled projection of costs compounding over time was a good one, and it produced documents that only 6% of the time were written in plain English, by the regulator’s own count.
Replacing that with a cash figure is a retreat from sophistication, and probably the right one. A number you can hold in your head is worth more than a chart you cannot check.
What it will not do is make charges comparable overnight. The transition runs to 2028, the pounds-and-pence figure depends on the amount you put in, and investment trust costs will sit outside the headline number by design. The direction is better. The arithmetic is still yours to do.
FAQ
Will my platform have to tell me what I am paying in pounds?
That is the proposal, both before you invest and in your regular reporting afterwards. The FCA proposes requiring costs to be shown on a personalised and annualised basis, as a percentage and as a pounds and pence figure based on the amount you are investing. It is a consultation, so it is not yet a rule.
Does this mean investment trusts are exempt from showing their costs?
No. Their ongoing costs must still be disclosed, separately and with an explanation of how they work. What changes is that those costs are not added into the single aggregated total alongside things like the platform fee, because they are deducted from the fund’s net asset value rather than charged to your account.
Why can I not find “investment trust” anywhere in the consultation?
Because the FCA uses the term “closed-ended investment funds”, or CEIFs, throughout. Investment trusts are the best-known type. Searching the document for “investment trust” returns nothing at all.
Does this apply to my pension?
Largely no. The FCA has proposed broad exemptions for pensions, which are covered by a separate part of its rulebook. Some limited changes touch pension service costs before the sale, but the main disclosure changes are aimed at investments business.
What is the double dipping rule about?
Where you hold cash inside an investment account, some firms have both charged a fee on that cash and kept some or all of the interest earned on it. The FCA told firms in a 2023 letter that it did not consider this acceptable. The proposal turns that letter into a rule, which makes it enforceable rather than advisory.
Is 8 June 2027 when everything changes?
No, and this is the most commonly muddled point. 8 June 2027 is when the separate Consumer Composite Investments regime becomes mandatory. The cost-disclosure rules in this consultation would come in around the end of 2026 with a transition period running to roughly June 2028.
Can I respond to the consultation myself?
Not any more. The window ran to 21 August 2026 and has now closed. While it was open the FCA named consumers and consumer groups among those the consultation was aimed at, and responses could be made via the form on the FCA website, by email to cp26-24@fca.org.uk, or by post; the FCA said it would publish the name of anyone responding as an individual rather than for an organisation. The next opportunity to see the outcome is the policy statement, intended by the end of 2026.
Information, not advice. This article describes a Financial Conduct Authority consultation as it stood on 31 July 2026. Consultations change before they become rules, and nothing described here is in force. It is general information and not a personal recommendation. Savvy Investor Guide is not authorised or regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. For free impartial guidance on investing, MoneyHelper is the government-backed service.
Key sources
- FCA, CP26/24: Simplifying consumer investment disclosures, published 2 July 2026, closing 21 August 2026.
- CP26/24, full consultation paper (PDF), for the proposals at paragraph 1.17, the pounds-and-pence requirement at 2.17, the CEIF treatment at 2.15, and the timetable at 4.28 to 4.35.
- FCA press release, 2 July 2026, including the finding that only 6% of pre-sale disclosure documents were written in plain English.
- FCA, PS25/20: final rules for Consumer Composite Investments, December 2025, which sets the 8 June 2027 date.
- The Consumer Composite Investments (Designated Activities) Regulations 2024, the legislation replacing the PRIIPs framework.
- Association of Investment Companies, “A win for consumers and investment companies”, 2 July 2026.