Is the clock running out for safeguarding execution?

For years, safeguarding was treated arsenic a compliance formality - a argumentation papers reviewed annually, a container ticked up of audits. That epoch is over. The FCA's CASS 15 deadline arrives connected 7 May 2026, shifting compliance from yearly audit cycles into mundane operations.
The caller requirements volition fortify however firms support lawsuit funds and assets, moving beyond box-ticking compliance toward demonstrable, ongoing power and accountability. It volition necessitate firms to instrumentality much robust governance, enhanced record-keeping, regular reconciliation, and clearer grounds that lawsuit assets are decently segregated and ever protected.

For outgo and e-money firms, safeguarding has shifted from a back-office argumentation workout to an execution challenge, and the urgency is real.

AutoRek’s Future of Payment Operations study recovered that lone 33% of organisations accidental they are afloat prepared for upcoming safeguarding and lawsuit wealth deadlines. Half study that implementation is inactive successful progress. The information exposes a wide spread betwixt regulatory anticipation and operational reality.

Most payments leaders recognize what CASS 15 requires: regular interior and outer money reconciliations, wide segregation of lawsuit funds, and demonstrable audit trails. The occupation is that the infrastructure needed to consistently present this simply doesn't beryllium wrong astir firms.

Fragmented information disrupts operations astatine 80% of payments firms. Where systems can’t reconcile automatically, real-time visibility breaks down. Without it, firms cannot show that lawsuit funds are decently segregated astatine immoderate fixed moment, which is precisely what CASS 15 demands. Legacy systems and third-party processor limitations are the superior culprits, preventing the real-time visibility that safeguarding demands.

Fragmented information doesn't conscionable dilatory reconciliation. Instead, it creates unsighted spots that go evident nether regulatory stress.

Compounding this occupation is that galore firms are reliant connected manual workarounds and spreadsheet driven reconciliation, with 69% citing this arsenic their biggest scalability constraint. For them, the displacement to CASS 15 is not an incremental upgrade.

As transaction volumes proceed to rise, labour-intensive processes don't conscionable summation successful cost. They present disproportionate operational risk. Each caller outgo channel, each further information source, each objection requiring manual probe adds load without adding control.

CASS 15 requires firms to show that safeguarding is embedded successful regular operations, not bolted connected astatine month-end. That means automated information pipelines susceptible of ingesting and validating information crossed aggregate sources successful existent time. It means objection monitoring that flags discrepancies immediately, not during the adjacent batch run. And it means audit trails that seizure each transaction determination automatically, not reconstructed retrospectively up of a regulatory review. Spreadsheet-driven reconciliation cannot simultaneously support gait with rising transaction volumes and conscionable regular compliance obligations.