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What has happened?

In October 2022, the FCA provided an update on its progress against the workstreams and outcomes that it committed to in its Consumer Investments Strategy in September 2021.

What are the key points of the update?

• The FCA believes that there has been continued progress towards improving standards in the market, with one in five new consumer investment firm applicants prevented from entering the market.
• The FCA believes that it is applying continued proactive supervision, with 59% more supervisory cases opened on high-risk investments or investment scams in 2021/22 than in the previous year.
• Continued enforcement work has been carried on to tackle bad actors, with £34.8m in consumer redress secured for unauthorised investment business.
• Continued support has been offered to firms looking to launch innovative products and services through the FCA’s Innovation Pathways and Regulatory Sandbox.
• Continued enforcement action has been carried on, with 33 live enforcement investigations or proceedings relating to the conduct of regulated firms/individuals where consumers have invested in scams or high-risk investments.
• There has been continued use of data to identify high-risk advice firms that offer advice on defined benefit pension transfers or on investing in non-standard investments within SIPPs.
  
  Longer-term projects include;
  
  
• Consultation on a more proportionate advice regime for investing new money into stocks and shares ISAs in 2022,
• A wider review of the advice/guidance framework, and
• Investigating changes to prudential requirements for non-MiFID adviser firms, to better enable them to meet their redress liabilities. The FCA plans to set out further details on this in 2023.

How can we help you?

If you’d like to know more about how we can help you with your retail customer investment arrangements, or any other regulatory compliance issues, our expert team is here to help.

Contact us today on 0207 436 0630 or email info@thistleinitiatives.co.uk.