FCA NSM Filings for AI Agents: Same MCP as SEC
AlphaCreek now supports UK FCA National Storage Mechanism filings through the same hosted connection as SEC EDGAR, with answers you can trace to the original disclosure.
FCA NSM Filings for AI Agents: Same MCP as SEC
Table of contents
- Short answer
- What is the FCA National Storage Mechanism?
- How is FCA NSM different from SEC EDGAR?
- What UK filings does AlphaCreek support?
- How do AI agents use FCA NSM filings?
- Example questions AlphaCreek can answer
- What should you not confuse with NSM?
- FAQ
- Methodology and update context
- Get started
Short answer
AlphaCreek now retrieves FCA National Storage Mechanism (NSM) filings for UK equity commercial companies through the same hosted MCP that already serves SEC EDGAR. Your agent can ask about a UK company’s annual report, half-year report, or selected regulatory announcements and get answers with links back to the original passage.
Why it matters: UK annual reports, half-year reports, and announcements are long and legally precise. NSM is the official archive, but it is built for search and download, not for an AI product that must quote a specific sentence. Without that, a UK filing agent fails the same way a naive 10-K chatbot fails: wrong document, too much text, nothing a human can verify.
Practical takeaway: Keep your existing AlphaCreek connection. Ask UK questions the same way you already ask SEC questions — for example, “What changed in Tesco’s principal risks in the latest annual report?” Do not treat NSM as “all UK companies,” and do not treat Companies House or the FCA Register as the same dataset.
One connection. Two filing archives. Answers that still open the original disclosure.
What is the FCA National Storage Mechanism?
The FCA National Storage Mechanism is the UK’s official public archive of regulated information that issuers must disclose under UK Listing Rules, the Disclosure Guidance and Transparency Rules (DTRs), MAR, and related prospectus rules.
NSM holds documents such as annual financial reports, half-yearly reports, and regulatory announcements. The public search UI is at data.fca.org.uk. Users can search by company name, LEI, date, and keywords, then download files.
That is access, not an answer your users can check. NSM does not turn a 200-page annual report into cited context for an agent. AlphaCreek’s job is the same as on EDGAR: ingest the filing, keep the original language, and return only the passages the question needs — each with a link a human can open.
Three terms matter in practice:
| Term | What it is | What it is not |
|---|---|---|
| NSM | Official storage archive of regulated documents | Live headline wire |
| RNS / PIP | Market announcement feed (often seen first) | The full tagged annual-report package |
| ESEF AFR | Structured annual financial report (the official electronic accounts) | A generic PDF of accounts |
Issuers prepare the annual financial report, file it with NSM, and announce that it is available. Analysts often see the headline first. The full annual package still lives in NSM.
How is FCA NSM different from SEC EDGAR?
Both archives publish source-sensitive company disclosures. Your product should still do the same job: pick the right filing, read the relevant passages, and show where the claim came from. The source systems differ.
| Dimension | SEC EDGAR | FCA NSM (in AlphaCreek) |
|---|---|---|
| Regulator / archive | US SEC | UK FCA National Storage Mechanism |
| How companies are identified | CIK and ticker | LEI and ticker (NSM search is LEI-first) |
| Familiar document families | 10-K, 10-Q, 20-F, 6-K, 8-K | Annual reports, half-year reports, selected announcements |
| Typical annual package | HTML 10-K | Structured electronic annual report |
| Event / interim text | 8-K, 10-Q | Half-year reports and selected results / trading announcements |
| How you reach it in AlphaCreek | Default US coverage | Ask for the UK / FCA company — same connection |
UK filings do not have a single “8-K” envelope. Annual reports, half-year reports, and shorter announcements (results, trading updates, and similar) are separate document families.
The retrieval idea is the same as on US filings: navigation over naive RAG, then a filing map the agent can read. For that workflow on SEC documents, see How to build an SEC filing agent without naive RAG. FCA uses the same product: structured filings, targeted reads, and source links.
What UK filings does AlphaCreek support?
Coverage today
- Universe: UK equity commercial companies on the Official List — Main Market operating companies, not AIM, not funds, and not every issuer that files anything into NSM. AlphaCreek’s operational list has 380 issuers and 4,000+ NSM documents.
- Documents: Annual financial reports, half-year / interim reports, and selected regulatory announcements such as results and trading updates.
- How you use it: The same hosted AlphaCreek connection you already use for SEC.
- Citations: Each returned passage can link into the AlphaCreek FCA reader at the cited place in the filing.
Not in this release
- AIM-only issuers (AIM is not a UK regulated market for these annual electronic reports)
- Companies House accounts for private companies
- The FCA Handbook / firm Register (authorisations, enforcement, permissions)
- The full NSM set (~1,030 issuers that file regulated information, including funds and debt)
- EU / Germany filings (next market on the homepage)
NSM itself is larger than AlphaCreek’s first UK slice. FCA reporting puts Official List issuers around 1,700+ and NSM regulated-information issuers around 1,030. We started with Main Market commercial equities because that is the set equity-research products ask about first.
How do AI agents use FCA NSM filings?
Existing AlphaCreek users do not connect a second server. They keep the same hosted connection and ask UK questions alongside US ones.
The agent still needs the original disclosure language. A numeric feed does not replace the strategic report, the notes, or the announcement prose.
Connect Claude or Perplexity at Connect. Wire a product at Build with AlphaCreek. Field-level reference stays in MCP docs if you need it later.
Example questions AlphaCreek can answer
These companies file in the UK, not with the SEC, so a US filing agent will miss them. Paste one of these questions into Claude, Perplexity, or your own agent once AlphaCreek is connected. Ask the model to link every material claim back to the source passage.
- Fetch filings from FCA. Compare Tesco’s last three annual reports. How did its business strategy and management goals change?
- Fetch filings from FCA. Compare Marks & Spencer’s latest half-year report with the previous one. What changed in the food, clothing, and margin discussion?
- What are the latest FCA filings available in AlphaCreek? Summarize each one.
What should you not confuse with NSM?
Several UK “FCA” datasets look adjacent and are not this product.
| Source | What it contains | What it is for |
|---|---|---|
| FCA NSM | Listed-issuer regulated documents (annuals, half-yearlies, announcements) | Filing-backed research answers |
| FCA Register / Handbook | Firm permissions, individuals, enforcement, handbook rules | Compliance lookup — not company reports |
| Companies House | UK company filings, including private companies | Corporate registry, not Main Market NSM |
| RNS / PIP wire | Real-time announcement text | Headlines; often not the full annual package |
Open-source tools that search the Register or Handbook solve a different job. AlphaCreek does not replace them. It makes NSM documents usable for agents the way it already makes EDGAR filings usable.
If your agent needs “is this firm authorised?” use the Register. If it needs “what did the annual report say about liquidity?” use NSM through AlphaCreek.
FAQ
Do I need a new connection for FCA? No. Use the existing hosted AlphaCreek connection. UK filings are available on the same MCP as SEC.
Is this all UK listed companies? No. Current coverage is Official List equity commercial companies. AlphaCreek’s operational list has 380 issuers and 4,000+ NSM documents. AIM is out of scope.
Can I still query SEC the same way? Yes. US SEC coverage is unchanged. FCA is additional coverage on the same connection.
Does AlphaCreek replace a financial data API? No. Traditional APIs return normalized numbers. AlphaCreek returns original filing language with source links. That is the same split as SEC EDGAR API vs MCP: keep the numbers store; use MCP for cited narrative.
When is EU / Germany available? It is next. It is not live in this release.
Methodology and update context
This article describes AlphaCreek’s FCA NSM coverage as of 17 August 2026: hosted retrieval of 4,000+ annual reports, half-year reports, and selected announcements across an operational list of 380 Official List equity commercial companies. The issuer count comes from AlphaCreek’s Official List scrape (generated 28 July 2026), not from FCA’s internal listings analytics figure for the same category. NSM scope follows FCA NSM documentation.
We will update this post when the issuer universe, document families, or EU coverage change in a way that would mislead a buyer.
Get started
- Already connected: ask UK / FCA questions on the same AlphaCreek connection you use for SEC. Start with the example questions above.
- New users: Connect AlphaCreek · Build with MCP · MCP docs
- Related: How to build an SEC filing agent without naive RAG · Best SEC EDGAR MCP servers · FlexReport citation workflow
If you are shipping a financial AI product that now needs UK disclosure context beside SEC, get an API key or talk to us about production rollout.