Once every two years, the FCA carries out a survey of consumer attitudes to the UK financial services industry, and the latest revealed the worrying fact that more than half of all UK adults don’t trust the industry. If there were any doubts as to why the regulator is pushing the new Consumer Duty, which came into force at the beginning of this week, that fact alone should clear them.
The FCA also flagged up some regulatory changes, and reported on enforcement actions including securing a Confiscation Order for over half a million pounds against a convicted money launderer.
Enforcement
Samsky Pay Ltd is no longer permitted to carry out regulated activities after the FCA removed permissions. This means investments with Samsky may not be protected.
The FCA believes the firm was providing payment accounts and advertising e-money and digital banking services without appropriate permissions.
A Confiscation Order of £562,636 ($723,141) has been secured against Richard Faithfull, a convicted money launderer. Faithfull was convicted in September 2021 and sentenced to five years and 10 months in prison for money laundering. He was part of an organised crime group which laundered proceeds from at least seven overseas investment frauds.
Last week, Southwark Crown Court in London ruled that Faithful had benefitted to the tune of £4,130,396 ($5,308,694), and the Confiscation Order is based on the Court’s findings on his available assets.
Faithful faces an additional four years in prison if he does not satisfy the terms of the Confiscation Order within three months.
S327 Proceeds of Crime Act 2002
Rules and Consultations
Following consultation, the FCA, Prudential Regulation Authority and Bank of England have revised the scheme for complaining about regulators, to make it “more transparent and user-friendly”.
If regulators are the sole or primary cause of financial loss, they will consider making a discretionary payment in recognition of that, and the proposed cap of £10,000 ($12,800) on compensatory payment has been dropped.
The new scheme will apply from November 1, 2023.
PS23/12: Complaints against the regulators
Temporary measures for the reporting of certain fields in UK MiFIR transaction reports have been put in place by the FCA. The regulator also intends to update UK MiFIR transaction reporting schema “to enable reporting of all alphanumeric values in the waiver indicator and OTC post-trade indicator fields”.
Publications
The FCA’s latest Financial Lives survey found fewer than half of all adults in the UK, some 21.9 million people, had confidence in the UK financial services industry. The regulator said the findings highlighted the importance of the new UK Consumer Duty, which came into force on 31 July.
PS22/9: A New Consumer Duty
Speeches and media
A brief statement was issued in connection with the ongoing controversy over account closures at NatWest. The regulator welcomed the NatWest Board’s commitment to an independent review of allegations relating to account closures and breach of customer confidentiality.