The Government’s Insolvency Service has issued its insolvency figures for January 2026 which show that construction is the UK’s worst performing sector for insolvencies in 2025. This is the fourth year in a row that construction has held that position.  Construction accounted for 17% of insolvencies in 2025 ahead of retail on 16% and hospitality on 14%.   The total  number of insolvencies in the UK construction sector was 3,728 but was lower than the 2024 figure for the sector of 4,032 insolvencies.

In early November 2025 one of the biggest UK’s largest private building control firms Assent Building Control Compliance Limited, along with its subsidiaries Oculus Building Consultancy Limited and LB Building Control Limited, (together “Assent”) ceased trading and subsequently entered liquidation. The collapse of such a major player in the building control sector will likely have wide ramifications throughout the whole construction industry, and particularly for HRB developments and the BSR’s Gateway 2 Application process.

In this article, we examine (1) the new regime for safeguarding of customer funds applying to UK payment and electronic money institutions, (2) the impact these reforms will have on those firms and (3) in particular, the indirect effect the reforms will have on banks holding safeguarded funds and insolvency practitioners who manage the insolvency of a failed payment or electronic money institution.