Enforcement
In the latest case connected to the British Steel Pension Scheme, Inspirational Financial Management, now in administration, has been fined £897,840 ($1,146,082). The FCA found 83% of the pension transfer advice the firm gave failed to comply with minimum standards.
Silverbird Global Limited (SGL) has entered special administration under the Payment and Electronic Money Institution Insolvency Regulations 2021. SGL provided foreign exchange and payment services to corporate buyers. FRP Advisory Trading has been appointed as the administrator.
Rules and consultations
Trade in bitcoin and ethereum Exchange Traded Notes (ETNs) was given the go-ahead when the FCA announced it “will not object to requests from Recognised Investment Exchanges (RIEs)” to create a UK market segment. Applications will be considered on a case-by-case basis, with the regulator emphasising that these products would be available for professional investors only. The move comes as millions of dollars flow into spot bitcoin ETFs following their approval by the US SEC in January.
Speeches and media
More needs to be done to ensure pensions deliver the returns needed for a comfortable retirement, said FCA chief executive Nikhil Rathi at the JP Morgan Pensions and Savings Symposium.
He said auto-enrolment had been a success, and pensions dashboards made it easier to track savings pots and make informed decisions about retirement income. But the challenge of whether the products now offered will “deliver the value and returns needed” needs to be faced, and action taken today to improve outcomes.
Rathi also spoke at the Morgan Stanley European Financials Conference in an effort to clarify the FCA’s regulatory approach. He said he wanted to “build a deeper, more open relationship with the market and the analyst community” and that his mission was to “to transform the FCA to become a more innovative, adaptive, assertive regulator”.
He said the FCA would be “pragmatic when looking at enforcement of the Consumer Duty”, which meant “looking favourably on firms that have made reasonable efforts to address concerns”.
There needed to be “honest conversations about the balance between short-term shareholder returns and long-term investment to ensure medium-term competitiveness”, and he emphasized “We are not a price regulator and we will not stand in the way of well-run businesses making profits in the face of effective competition”.
At the end a long and detailed speech he summarized the main regulator’s aims:
- To act proportionately, based on evidence.
- To collect more if we need it.
- To balance our objectives.
- To mitigate the risk of unintended consequences.
- To flag issues early, allowing those we regulate to act before we feel we must.
- To do what we say we will do.
- To act fast where we see significant harm and to avoid a problem becoming larger than it need be.
- To allow the space for firms to invest and innovate.
- And play our part in supporting a thriving, attractive and competitive financial sector here in the UK.