FCA amends/withdraws 4,151 financial promotions in Q3 2022
The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) amended or withdrew 4,151 financial promotions in the third quarter of 2022, according to fresh data published today by the regulator.
- In the third quarter of 2022, the FCA reviewed 340 promotions, and its engagement resulted in 4,151 amends/withdrawals.
- Retail lending (with 46%), retail investments and retail banking are the sectors with the highest amend/withdraw outcomes, amounting to 95% of FCA’s interventions with authorised firms.
- Some of the most common breaches involved credit brokers, e-money providers and CFD providers.
The FCA expects authorised firms issuing and/or approving financial promotions to take responsibility in making sure all communications of financial promotions are clear, fair and not misleading and otherwise comply with the relevant rules.
This can also include oversight of appointed representatives, or introducer appointed representatives, and marketing across all media platforms such as websites, paid for Google ads and social media sites.
In 2022 Q3, the FCA received 6,243 reports about potential unauthorised business.
The regulator issued 303 alerts about unauthorised firms and individuals. Just over 20% of these were about clone scams. Many of these involved breaches of the financial promotion restriction online. In almost all cases the FCA asked for the websites to be taken down.
Over the last quarter, the regulator has seen a number of cases involving unauthorised firms and individuals seeking to take advantage of the rising cost of living. As consumers become financially squeezed, they are likely to be targeted by fraudsters and scams and also more likely to engage with high-risk and unregulated products such as cryptoassets.
The FCA is aware that scammers are targeting consumers searching for investments online, in particular through search engines such as Google and social media such as Facebook, Instagram or YouTube. This means consumers often need help to understand which products and services are not necessarily authorised or regulated by the FCA.