FCA Market Watch 66 explained: call recording when staff work from anywhere

Market Watch 66 is the FCA newsletter, published in January 2021, that told regulated firms their call-recording obligations don’t stop at the office door. Homeworking, personal devices, WhatsApp - the SYSC 10A recording rules “remain the same”, and firms must be able to demonstrate, on request, that their policies and controls still meet them.

It’s five years old, it created no new rules, and it’s still one of the most quietly important documents in UK compliance - because the working pattern it was written for became permanent. Here’s what it actually said, verified against the FCA’s own text, and what it means if your regulated staff work from mobiles.

The usual caveat: I run a mobile network that builds compliance recording, so this is not legal or compliance advice - it’s a close reading of an FCA publication plus product context. Your compliance function owns your firm’s position.

What did Market Watch 66 actually say?

The January 2021 edition dealt almost entirely with recording telephone conversations and electronic communications under “alternative working arrangements”. The substance:

• The obligations didn’t move. Firms are expected to keep complying with SYSC 10A while staff work from home - there was no pandemic dispensation, and none since.
• Unmonitored apps are in the spotlight. The FCA flagged increased use of unmonitored and encrypted apps “such as WhatsApp” for potentially sensitive work, and said that if such apps are used for in-scope activities on business devices, they must be recorded and auditable.
• Personal devices are a policy decision - with teeth. Firms should assess their controls for privately owned devices, which “might include ensuring clear policies banning the use of privately owned devices for in-scope activities where recording cannot be carried out by the firm”.
• Scope is wide. The FCA reminded firms that recording policies must catch not just calls that directly relate to in-scope activities, but communications intended to lead up to them, or where there’s a reasonable prospect of them being performed - sometimes including internal conversations.
• You must be able to prove it. Firms need effective, up-to-date, written recording policies - signed off under proper governance, covering homeworking - and must be able to demonstrate to the FCA on request that policies, procedures and management oversight meet the rules. New communication channels should be approved before staff use them, with refreshed training.
• Enforcement is real. The FCA noted it had already acted against individuals who used WhatsApp and social media to arrange deals and push “trading signals”, and said it expected this to remain an area of focus.

If you want the primary source, it’s short: Market Watch 66 on fca.org.uk.

Why does a 2021 newsletter still matter in 2026?

Because the thing it worried about stopped being an emergency and became the normal shape of work. In 2021, “staff conducting regulated business away from the recorded office phone” was a pandemic problem. In 2026, it’s simply how firms operate - advisers on the road, dealmakers on mobiles, half the week from home. The controlled office environment that legacy recording estates were built around now covers a fraction of the conversations that matter.

Meanwhile the enforcement backdrop got louder. The US regulators’ off-channel communications sweep collected billions in penalties for exactly the fact pattern Market Watch 66 described - business done on channels the firm couldn’t capture (we covered it in our SEC 17a-4 piece). UK firms reading Market Watch 66 today should read it as a statement of where the FCA’s attention sits when something goes wrong: show us your mobile channel.

Why do recording apps struggle against these expectations?

Re-read the FCA’s framing: firms must be able to demonstrate their controls work, and should ban what they cannot record. Now hold app-based mobile recording up against that.

• Apps are bypassable. The native dialler sits right next to the recording app. A policy says “use the app”; the phone doesn’t enforce it. Market Watch 66’s whole premise is that controls relying on individual behaviour degrade outside the office.
• Apps are device-dependent. Permissions lapse after OS updates, logins expire, storage fills, installs drift across the fleet - often silently. Your coverage becomes a claim you hope is true rather than one you can demonstrate.
• Completeness is the test. When the FCA asks a firm to demonstrate its recording arrangements, “every call on every business number was captured in the network” is an answer. “The app was installed and staff were trained to use it” is a hope.

Where does SIM-level, network-level capture fit?

Network-level recording moves the control out of the user’s hands entirely. The business number lives on a recorded SIM or eSIM; every call and SMS on that number is captured in the mobile network itself, wherever the person is - office, home, train. There’s nothing on the device to forget, misconfigure or delete, and nothing for an OS update to break.

That maps cleanly onto Market Watch 66’s expectations: the firm can permit mobile working because it can record it; personal devices can carry a recorded business identity alongside an untouched personal one; and completeness is demonstrable from network records rather than reconstructed from app logs. Staff who already give out a business mobile number do not need a new one either - existing numbers can be ported to ONSIM and become recorded, firm-managed lines on the same system. The regulatory detail - SYSC 10A, MiFID II Article 16(7), five-to-seven-year retention, audit trail - is mapped out on our FCA call recording compliance page.

Who should care about Market Watch 66?

Not just banks. The recording regime follows the activity, not the firm’s size - a two-adviser investment manager, a small broker, a fund manager’s dealing desk of one. If any of your staff carry out in-scope activities in financial instruments and own a mobile phone, Market Watch 66 is addressed to you. (And if you’re not sure whether your firm is in scope at all, start with do FCA regulated companies have to record calls? - many firms aren’t, and the honest answer matters.)

The uncomfortable truth Market Watch 66 put on record is that the FCA judges firms on the conversations they can’t produce. Five years on, the firms still treating mobile as an awkward exception to the recording estate are the ones with the gap.

If your regulated staff work from mobiles, we’ll show you what network-level capture looks like - request a quote or call +44 333 880 4008.

This article is general information, not legal or compliance advice. Confirm your firm’s obligations with your compliance function. Sources: FCA Market Watch 66 (January 2021), fca.org.uk; FCA Handbook SYSC 10A.

Luke Faragher is the founder of ONSIM, which has run SIM-native business mobile and landline services since 2013. ONSIM is an independent mobile network.