Against the background of change and debate over the future structure of regulation of the financial services industry, this paper examines the self-regulating organisations (SROs) established wider the Financial Services Act 1986 from a compliance officer's perspective. The paper analyses the size of membership of each of the four SROs and the monitoring of investment business, SRO rulebooks and the ‘New Settlement’, the status and reputation of the four organisations. It concludes that the future of the SROs may depend upon the outcome of the wider ‘regulatory fragmentation’ argument and the successful creation of a new retail SRO.