TheCityUK has called for faster delivery, clearer regulatory execution, and stronger capital mobilisation ahead of Mansion House, warning that UK specific investment commitments remain on hold until reforms show tangible progress.
The industry body’s Mansion House submission, published on 11 June, says the UK remains a globally significant financial centre but faces faster moving international competition and a more turbulent geopolitical environment.
The submission argues that the priority should be pace, clarity, and coordinated delivery rather than incremental reform. It says Mansion House provides an opportunity to show progress against the Financial Services Growth and Competitiveness Strategy and strengthen confidence among investors, companies, and markets.
TheCityUK’s position draws on its “No time to lose” report, produced with PwC. The report was based on one of the largest recent listening exercises across the sector, drawing on insights from more than 300 senior leaders across industry, government, regulators, and academia, supported by economic modelling and international benchmarking.
The submission sets out five priority areas where TheCityUK believes government action can accelerate investment and reinforce the UK’s global position. The first is leadership in next generation financial markets, including tokenisation and digital wholesale infrastructure. TheCityUK argues that the UK needs to move beyond experimentation if it wants to anchor activity domestically.
The wider submission presses for action across regulatory delivery, investment conditions, and the mechanisms needed to mobilise private capital. Policy direction has become more positive, but companies and investors still need evidence that legislation, regulation, and implementation are advancing quickly enough to affect decisions.
The City’s competitiveness debate has become more urgent because financial services are being asked to support several national priorities at once. Ministers want the sector to drive economic growth, fund infrastructure, strengthen pensions investment, enable technology adoption, improve capital market depth, and maintain the UK’s position against rival centres in the US, EU, Asia, and the Gulf.
The issue is not whether the UK has a strong financial services sector. It does. The sharper question is whether it can retain and expand activity in areas where regulation, technology, capital rules, tax, market infrastructure, and talent determine where companies choose to list, trade, invest, lend, and build.
PwC has previously estimated that stronger productivity growth across London’s frontier sectors could unlock up to £76bn in additional annual GVA across the UK by 2030. TheCityUK’s submission sits in the same competitiveness agenda, linking finance to national productivity, investment, and technology led growth.
Tokenisation and digital wholesale markets illustrate the execution challenge. The UK has strengths in law, financial infrastructure, regulation, professional services, and market expertise. Leadership in digital markets, however, depends on turning pilots and sandboxes into scaled systems with legal certainty, trusted settlement mechanisms, operational resilience, and regulatory confidence.
The same pattern applies to capital mobilisation. UK policymakers have repeatedly argued that domestic institutional capital should do more to fund scale ups, infrastructure, transition finance, and productive investment. That requires changes across pension investment, risk appetite, regulation, market design, and incentives. It also requires investable projects and managers with the capacity to deploy capital effectively.
Regulatory reform remains sensitive. A stronger competitiveness mandate can make the UK more attractive, but weaker oversight would damage trust. The challenge is to remove unnecessary friction while preserving the credibility that underpins London’s global role. That balance is particularly important in payments, digital assets, bank capital, consumer protection, insurance, and market conduct.
External competition is intensifying. Other jurisdictions are competing on technology infrastructure, listing rules, green finance, tax treatment, talent visas, regulatory speed, and political consistency. Companies deciding where to build a trading operation, launch a fund, list shares, or develop digital market infrastructure weigh those factors together.
TheCityUK’s emphasis on delivery reflects frustration with strategies that do not quickly alter commercial decisions. Investment committees and global boards need timelines, rules, and evidence that the direction of policy will endure. Without that, capital remains mobile and caution persists.
Financial and related professional services are often associated with London, but their economic reach extends through Edinburgh, Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, Cardiff, Belfast, Bristol, and Glasgow. Capital market strength, fintech adoption, legal services, insurance, accountancy, and professional advice all influence business growth outside the capital.
The Mansion House agenda will test whether the government can convert competitiveness plans into practical decisions affecting investment, infrastructure, pensions, technology, and enterprise finance. TheCityUK’s submission makes clear that the sector is looking less for another strategy than for visible execution.
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