FCA amends or withdraws 5,310 financial promotions in Q3 2023
The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) today published the financial promotions data for the third quarter of 2023.
FCA interventions during the three months to end-September 2023 resulted in 5,310 promotions being amended or withdrawn by authorised firms.
The retail investments and retail lending sectors had the highest amend/withdraw outcomes, totalling 80% of FCA’s interventions with authorised firms.
Some of the most common breaches involved debt advice firms, credit broker firms and Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) providers where the FCA undertook a proactive review. The check resulted in the FCA writing to 18 firms and 55 promotions being amended or withdrawn. Common concerns included non-compliance of the high-risk warning or the risk summary.
In Q3 2023, the FCA issued 488 alerts on unauthorised firms and individuals, 11% of these were clone scams.
On 8 October 2023, the financial promotion rules for cryptoassets went live. These rules require financial promotions to be clear, fair, and not misleading, to display clear risk warnings, to disclose the firm’s regulated status and cease offering any form of incentive to invest.