FCA challenged 8,582 financial promotions last year
The City regulator challenged 8,582 financial promotions during 2022, 14 times more than in 2021.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) also published more than 1,800 alerts to help prevent consumers from losing money to financial scams.
Amid a crackdown on misleading financial ads, regulated firms were required to either amend or remove thousands of promotions last year, in an effort to protect consumers from fraud.
Social media was a “major focus” of this work, the FCA said. The regulator has worked with several Big Tech companies to change their advertising policies by only allowing financial promotions that have been approved by FCA-authorised firms.
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“Our expectations remain the same,” said Sarah Pritchard, executive director of markets at the FCA.
“Financial promotions must be fair, clear and not misleading. What has changed is the FCA’s approach. By drawing on better technology, we’re finding poor quality or misleading ads quicker. And where we find them, we’re stepping in to make firms improve them or remove them entirely.
“This year, we will continue to put the pressure on people using social media to illegally promote investments, which put people’s hard-earned money at risk.”
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The FCA added that ‘fin-fluencers’ have been a growing concern, and warned that “unauthorised individuals should not advise people on the merits of certain investments”. The regulator has already acted against several social media influencers over the past year.
“In one case, the FCA found a director of a regulated firm using their personal profile to promote the advice of unauthorised traders and other financial products,” the regulator revealed.
“The FCA blocked them from using their personal social media to promote financial services and imposed a requirement on the firm to halt any financial services promotions.”
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