FCA received 280 whistleblowing reports in Q1
The City regulator received 280 whistleblowing reports in the first quarter of this year, containing 744 allegations in total.
This was broadly flat year-on-year, when the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) received 276 reports in the first quarter of 2022.
The most common allegations in January this year centred around the culture of the organisation, followed by compliance and treating customers fairly.
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In February, compliance and the culture of the organisation came joint top, followed by fitness and propriety.
And in March, fitness and propriety and compliance were the most common allegations, followed by systems and controls.
Other allegations pertained to consumer detriment, fraud, data security, mis-selling, insider dealing and capital adequacy.
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“We assess every whistleblowing case we receive that falls within our remit, to inform our work and help us identify actual or potential harm,” the FCA said. “This could be harm to consumers, to markets, to the UK economy or to wider society.”
Most of the whistleblowers’ allegations in the first quarter were made via the FCA’s online reporting form, followed by email and then telephone.
175 whistleblowers provided their contact details to the regulator, while the remainder chose to remain anonymous.
In May this year, the FCA announced that it had strengthened its approach towards whistleblowers, after gathering feedback from a survey.
The regulator has vowed to share more information with whistleblowers about how it has acted on their information. It said it will also improve the use of the information provided by whistleblowers, and improve the ways in which it captures information from whistleblowers.
The new approach follows a qualitative survey of former whistleblowers who criticised the lack of follow up from the FCA on previous complaints.