The Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) has issued a policy statement finalising its decision to delete Supervisory Statement (SS) 20/15 on supervising building societies’ treasury and lending activities in full and without replacement. The package is relevant to building societies and credit unions, includes a consequential amendment to SS31/15 on the Internal Capital Adequacy Assessment Process (ICAAP) and the Supervisory Review and Evaluation Process (SREP), and is effective on publication rather than 1 January 2026 as consulted. The withdrawal follows CP11/25, which drew seven responses, and reflects the PRA’s view that SS20/15 is no longer consistent with its broader policy approach and creates a potential level-playing-field issue because it imposed prescriptive expectations on building societies that banks are not subject to. The PRA does not intend to apply SS20/15 as internal or unpublished expectations and expects firms to rely on existing, generally applicable expectations and rules on governance and risk management, noting that significant diversifications should still be notified in line with Fundamental Rule 7; some detailed guidance will fall away, but the PRA points to other supervisory statements (including SS31/15 and SS24/15) as continuing sources of relevant expectations. As part of the consequential changes, paragraph 2.12A has been deleted from SS31/15 to remove a cross-reference to SS20/15. The PRA intends to remove a remaining reference to SS20/15 in the near-final small domestic deposit taker ICAAP/SREP supervisory statement (SS4/25) when it publishes final policy and rule instruments on the small domestic deposit taker capital regime during 2026, and expects related credit-union cross-references to be addressed through the separate CP13/25 process.
Prudential Regulation Authority 2025-12-05
United Kingdom's Prudential Regulation Authority withdraws SS20/15 guidance on building societies’ treasury and lending activities
The Prudential Regulation Authority has withdrawn Supervisory Statement 20/15 on supervising building societies’ treasury and lending activities in full and without replacement, effective immediately, and deleted paragraph 2.12A from Supervisory Statement 31/15. The PRA says SS20/15 no longer aligns with its broader policy and created level‑playing‑field concerns, and confirms it will not use it as internal expectations, instead directing firms to generally applicable governance and risk management rules and other supervisory statements such as SS31/15 and SS24/15.