We published the results of our culture and non-financial misconduct survey to better understand how over 1,000 investment banks, brokers and wholesale insurance firms record and manage allegations of non-financial misconduct (NFM). NFM can include, but is not limited to, bullying, sexual harassment and discrimination.

We have shared the survey’s findings to enable firms to benchmark their own reporting against peer analysis and consider if their processes for reporting and investigating potential NFM remain appropriate.

Healthy workplace cultures are essential across all markets we regulate. Trade associations will play a key role in coordinating industry-wide analyses and responses. We expect stakeholders from many sectors of the economy, especially those with an interest in workplace culture, to find the data useful.

This month we announced a package of work in the insurance market amid concerns about rising prices, alongside the launch of the Government motor insurance taskforce.

We’ve launched a premium finance market study, to see whether people who borrow to pay for motor and home insurance are receiving fair, competitive deals.

With the average yearly rate on the amount of money borrowed ranging between 20-30%, we are concerned that premium finance may not be providing fair value. Over 20 million people are estimated to pay for their insurance this way and our research shows that 79% of adults in financial difficulty have used the product.

The Government taskforce, which includes the FCA, aims to identify actions that may stabilise or reduce motor insurance premiums, while maintaining appropriate levels of cover.

As part of the taskforce, we will analyse the causes of increased costs in motor insurance. We will look closely at claims costs, reviewing claims handling arrangements and factors impacting different types of claims.

We will also analyse the impact of rising insurance prices on different customer groups. For example, younger and older drivers and those from ethnic minority backgrounds or on lower incomes.

Our newly launched AI Lab provides a pathway for the FCA, firms and wider stakeholders to engage in AI-related insights, discussions and solutions. It will help us deepen our understanding of the risks and opportunities AI presents to UK consumers and markets, and inform our regulatory approach in a practical, collaborative way.

The first components of the AI Lab include:

• AI Spotlight: Projects accepted to the AI Spotlight will give a real-world insight and practical understanding into how firms are experimenting with AI in financial services. Applications now open.
• AI Sprint: We will host an AI Sprint in January 2025. Details coming soon.
• AI Input Zone: Soon, we’ll invite all stakeholders to have their say on the future of AI in UK financial services through an online feedback platform.
• Supercharged Sandbox: Looking ahead, we’ll run AI-focused TechSprints and enhance our Digital Sandbox infrastructure through greater computing power, enriched datasets and increased AI testing capabilities.

Sign up to be updated on the latest AI Lab developments.

Publication of the eighth edition of the Grid was postponed due to the general election.

Due to the replanning required because of the change of government, the Financial Services Regulatory Initiatives Forum (the Forum) will not be able to provide a complete grid this year.

However, the Forum recognises that the Grid is a valuable tool for industry and stakeholders so is providing an interim update.

This update covers known regulatory initiatives impacting firms from October 2024 to March 2025. It is intended to support impacted firms and stakeholders in their planning.

On 30 September, 2024, Mr Olumide Osunkoya pleaded guilty to 5 offences for operating crypto ATMs without FCA registration, creating and using false documents and possession of criminal property.

This is the first UK conviction of its kind for offences relating to the operation of crypto ATMs.

Mr Osunkoya illegally operated a network of at least 11 crypto ATMs which processed more than £2.6m in crypto transactions between 29 December 2021 and 8 September 2023.

Sentencing for the offences will take place at Southwark Crown Court at a date to be confirmed.

Read more about the case.

This month we commenced criminal proceedings against 2 individuals for insider dealing.

The alleged offending took place between 2016 and 2020, and the pair made £110,000 in profit.

This month we published a review of payments firms’ implementation of the Consumer Duty.

We looked at how payments firms have considered the Duty’s requirements, identified any gaps and addressed them. We also share some good and poor practices in the sector.

The report illustrates the progress payments firms have made in implementing the Consumer Duty and the remaining challenges.

We recognise adapting to new regulation can be challenging and are continuing to support and intervene where needed.

As part of improving our Authorisation process, we’re updating the Firm Details form. Firms use the form to update their information.

We’re strengthening validations on all existing fields on the form, as well as verifying email addresses, phone numbers and postal addresses. We’re also improving guidance, navigation and accessibility.

Firms Registered with Companies House must go to the Companies House website to make sure your details are correct as soon as possible. The new firm details form will use the registered name, registered address and financial year-end held by Companies House as the official record for your firm.

On 10 September, we fined TSB £10,910,500 over its unfair treatment of customers in arrears and its lack of suitable systems and controls to secure fair outcomes. TSB has paid £99.9m in redress to the 232,849 mortgage, overdraft, credit card and loan customers affected.

We ordered a skilled person report into TSB’s treatment of customers who had fallen into arrears in July 2020. TSB’s inadequate processes created a real risk that repayment plans were not realistic for customers. This risked TSB agreeing unaffordable payment arrangements with customers in difficulty or charging them inappropriate fees.

We have fined Volkswagen Financial Services (UK) Ltd £5,397,600 for failing to treat its customers in financial difficulty fairly. They have agreed to pay over £21.5m in redress to around 110,000 customers. They are 1 of nearly 100 lenders we have worked with in the last 4 years to improve outcomes for struggling customers.

This enforcement investigation took a total of 13 months to complete, compared to an average of 42 months for investigations closed in 2023/24. It is an example of how we are carrying out enforcement work faster and with greater focus.

We have fined Starling Bank £28,959,426 for financial crime failings related to its financial sanctions screening. After serious concerns were raised about its financial crime controls, it agreed to a requirement restricting it from opening new accounts for high-risk customers. However, it failed to comply, opening over 54,000 accounts for 49,000 high-risk customers between September 2021 and November 2023.

It became aware of problems with its automated sanctions screening system and subsequently identified systemic issues in its financial sanctions framework.

We continue to supervise firms to make sure they have appropriate systems and controls to manage financial crime risks.

This month, we published our observations of the financial resilience of consumer credit firms and non-bank mortgage lenders.

Overall, we found most firms could improve their approach to risk identification and risk management in relation to financial resilience. By building an effective risk management framework, with the appropriate oversight, firms should be able to make more informed business decisions. This work supports our commitment to reduce harm from firm failure.

We also highlight good practice and areas of improvement, as well as reminding firms of our existing guidance on assessing adequate financial resources and wind down planning.

The Transition Finance Market Review (TFMR) has published its report and recommendations on how to scale the market to support UK and global net zero ambitions.

Transition finance remains a priority for us and we acknowledge the TFMR’s call for more communication on how we view its role within our wider work and regulation.

Find out more about how we aim meet our objective to support the market to scale with integrity and to help build trust.

We encourage firms to read the TFMR’s recommendations and we’re keen to hear from you as we undertake further work on this issue.

Principle 11 requires a firm to deal with its regulators in an open and cooperative way and to disclose to the FCA anything relating to the firm of which the FCA would reasonably expect notice.

To improve the efficiency of this process, we have created a new webform for SUP 15 notification submission. Here, we will be asking for more details of the issue before firms upload their submission. This will allow us to identify any high-risk concerns which may need prompt escalation.

The new webform has now been released. Please use this webform when submitting a SUP 15 notification.

We welcome the government's recent consultation on the regulation of currently exempt buy now pay later (BNPL) products. We have long called for these products to be brought into our remit. In 2021, the FCA board backed the Woolard Review recommendation that BNPL be brought into regulation.

We will consult shortly after legislation is finalised on our regulatory regime for BNPL. This will include our proposed rules and approach to authorising firms. We want to ensure those who find BNPL helpful can still benefit from it, firms can innovate and grow, and consumers are appropriately protected.

We’ll consider feedback before we finalise our rules and undertake a cost-benefit analysis to ensure that our approach is proportionate and delivers against our statutory objectives. Firms will then be given a short period to prepare for our rules before they come into effect. We expect to take on regulation of the sector 12 months after legislation is made.

The Bank of England and the FCA have opened the Digital Securities Sandbox (DSS) and are encouraging firms to apply.

This month we responded to the DSS consultation.

The DSS reshapes how we regulate by allowing firms to test legislative changes in real world scenarios before the changes are implemented.

It gives firms the opportunity to explore new technologies like Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) a system for storing and managing information distributed across participants in a network, in traditional financial markets. This technology can improve efficiency and reduce costs in wholesale markets, benefitting industry and investors.

We have published our latest retirement income market data update. We summarise the data from 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024 (2023/24). The data enables us to monitor developments in the retirement market, or example to track what action consumers take the first time they access a pension pot.

Key findings: 

• Total number of pension plans accessed for the first time in 2023/24 increased by 19.7% to 885,455 compared to 2022/23 (739,652).
• Sales of annuities saw the biggest increase from 59,163 in 2022/23 to 82,061 in 2023/24 (38.7%).
• Sales of drawdown increased by 27.9% from 218,183 in 2022/23 to 278,977 in 2023/24.

If you want to explore the data further, have a look at our retirement income dashboards.

We have published the most recent data on the volume of complaints reported by firms during the first half (H1) of 2024. We use the complaints data to help assess how well firms are treating their customers and how their performance changes over time.

Key findings include: 

• In 2024 H1, financial services firms received 1.86m complaints, a 4% decrease from 2023 H2 (1.94m).
• The product groups that experienced an increase in their complaint numbers were decumulation & pensions (7.1%), insurance & pure protection (1.4%) and investments (2.1%).

Visit our website for further information and data visualisations.

We have summarised data from Q3 2024, on our actions against firms breaching financial promotion rules, and referrals and investigations into unregulated activity.

This data shows how we are working to improve standards across the market so that consumers are provided with clear and fair financial promotions which are not misleading.

Key findings include:

• Our Q3 interventions resulted in 10,593 promotions being amended or withdrawn by authorised firms. One firm withdrew 6,792 promotions, many of which were historical promotions withdrawn as a precaution.
• We issued 552 alerts on unauthorised firms and individuals, 12% of these were clone scams.
• Since the introduction of the cryptoasset financial promotion regime last October, we have issued 1,702 consumer alerts about illegal crypto promotions and our actions have resulted in the take down of over 900 scam crypto websites and the removal of 56 apps from UK apps stores. We are continuing to work with social media companies to remove and block illegal content on their platforms.

Our news and publications alerts keep you up to date with our press releases, speeches, statements, consultations, guidance, notices and decisions.

The first FCA Economics Research Conference is being hosted by the FCA Economics Profession at our Stratford office on 26 November. You can apply to attend.

You’ll be able to network with stakeholders in the financial services regulatory space. You’ll also be able to hear about our research in retail and wholesale markets, and the ways we are raising the analytical bar for our cost benefit assessments.

There will also be the chance for you to discuss and debate the role of financial services within the wider growth agenda and explore ways that you can work with our economists on joint projects.

David Stallibrass, deputy chief economist and head of department, economics wrote about the gaps in our understanding about regulation and growth and how we are addressing them with the support of the wider research community.

Read his blog on Improving our understanding of how financial services regulation affects economic growth.

Nick Hulme, head of department for advisers, wealth and pensions, consumer investments highlights that in the constantly shifting world of financial advice, embracing difference isn't just important – it's crucial for future success.

Nick goes on to say that while we’re continuing to focus on delivering good client outcomes, we are embracing a more flexible approach to regulation.

This will allow firms of all sizes, including smaller firms and sole traders, to best serve their clients.

This change brings both risk and opportunity.

Read his blog on A new approach to financial advice regulation.

Val Smith, head of payment and digital assets, authorisation division, wrote about how the FCA’s approach to registering crypto firms under the Money Laundering Regulations is vital to developing a thriving and trusted crypto sector.

Val explained how the standards we hold firms to are important for protecting people and our markets, as well as supporting the industry's growth and competition.

Read her blog on Cryptoasset registrations: building strong foundations.