We have set out findings from our review of whether financial advisers are delivering the ongoing advice services that consumers have paid for. Advisers can charge their clients for ongoing advice and related services, such as arranging transactions or managing a relationship between a retail client and discretionary investment manager.

In the vast majority of cases, we found financial advisers are delivering suitability reviews.

We had concerns these services may not always have been delivered when offered, so asked for data from 22 of the largest financial advice firms. The review focused on delivery of suitability reviews as firms generally included these as part of their ongoing advice service.

The data firms provided showed that suitability reviews were delivered in around 83% of cases. In a further 15% of cases we were told that clients either declined or did not respond to the firm’s offer of a review. There were fewer than 2% of cases where firms reported they had made no effort to deliver this service to clients.

We ask all advice firms to review our findings, and consider if they have met their regulatory requirements and contractual obligations for ongoing services. If not, they should take steps to remedy the situation.

This month we released our 2024 financial promotions data, showing that nearly 20,000 financial promotions were withdrawn or amended following our intervention. This is almost double the figure for 2023.

The data highlights ongoing concerns with promotions involving cryptoassets, debt solutions and claims management companies (CMCs). A total of 9,197 CMC promotions were removed, many targeting vulnerable consumers with housing disrepair and motor finance claims. We are urging social media platforms to do more to identify and prevent illegal financial promotions.

We encourage firms to ensure their promotions are fair, accurate and not misleading.

The FCA and PSR have published a joint feedback statement which assesses the usage and impact of digital wallets. This summarises the feedback we received in response to our Call for Information.

The use of digital wallets has grown rapidly in recent years. The proportion of card transactions using a digital wallet increasing significantly from 8% in 2019 to 29% in 2023.

Given this growth, the FCA and PSR engaged extensively with businesses and representative groups to assess the impact of digital wallets. We found significant benefits to consumers through greater convenience, stronger security measures, and, for some, greater financial inclusion.

We also heard concerns, including improvements needed to enable competition among digital wallet providers and allowing new players to enter the market. This could bolster innovation, expanding the range of alternative payment methods on offer and giving consumers more choice.

We have used the results of our engagement with stakeholders and other regulators to inform our next steps. We have and will continue to engage with the CMA on potential competition issues which respondents highlighted. We will also engage with the Treasury as part of our review of the Payment Services and Electronic Money Regulations to ensure the regulatory framework is future-proof.

Last month, we announced the upcoming launch of My FCA.

It is a single sign in portal, using your existing user details, for Connect, RegData and Online Invoicing System.

Once signed in, you’ll be able to see your scheduled regulatory reporting and attestation tasks in one place. This will make it easier to see all the information relating to your regulatory activities and to fulfil your regulatory responsibilities.

We’d encourage you to add My FCA - https://myfca.fca.org.uk - to your allow list of trusted website addresses ahead of our go live date in spring 2025.

We’ve confirmed that we no longer expect firms to have a Consumer Duty Board Champion.

Now the Duty is in full effect, we want to give firms greater flexibility on their ongoing governance arrangements. Firms are free to retain the role should they wish to do so.

This means that the view set out in our final non-handbook guidance (FG 22/5), where we said we expected firms to have a champion at Board level or equivalent, no longer applies. We will take steps to update FG22/5 to reflect the new position in due course.

Firms can find full details on our consumer duty webpages.

We have set out proposals to make it easier for listed companies to issue corporate bonds that wealth managers and retail investors can buy. We also set out simplified requirements for listed companies when they issue further shares.

Taken as a package that's more funding for companies, more easily, and more choice for investors too.

As part of improving our authorisation process, we’re updating the firm details form.

If your firm is registered with Companies House and you haven’t already, please update your details via the Companies House website as soon as possible. The new form will use the registered name, registered address and financial year-end held by Companies House as the official record for your firm.

We’re also making the following changes: 

• Strengthening the validation process for all existing fields on the form.
• Verifying email addresses, phone numbers, and postal addresses.
• Improving guidance, navigation, and accessibility. 

Earlier this month, we published the final policy statement (PS25/1) on reforming the commodity derivatives regulatory framework. This followed extensive consultation with market participants.

Our changes cover position limits, exemptions, position management controls, and reporting requirements. By strengthening the regulatory framework and increasing trust, we will help support market liquidity and competition. In our letter to the Prime Minister, we said we would strengthen the UK’s leading role in the global commodities markets, and that’s what we are doing.

The new rules will come into effect on 6 July 2026, allowing trading venues and market participants time to transition. We will work closely with stakeholders to support its implementation.

We welcomed the final report of the Accelerated Settlement Taskforce and support the UK market’s move to T+1 settlement.

We highlighted how the move to T+1 will make our markets more efficient and support growth in our recent letter to the Prime Minister. We will support industry as it moves to T+1 and expect firms to engage and plan early.

We announced we had issued a £1.6m fine against Mako Financial Markets Partnership LLP for failing to ensure it had systems and controls to guard against financial crime. This case concludes our investigation into cum-ex trading. 

For UK financial services to grow and compete, investors need to have trust in them. That’s why it is vital we stamp out these unacceptable practices which harm the reputation and integrity of UK markets.

As part of our AI research series, we have published 2 papers on the relative effectiveness of different methods for explaining the outputs of AI to consumers. This is done in the context of firms’ determining consumers’ creditworthiness, and the potential for pricing differences due to demographic characteristics in the mortgages market.

We tested whether participants could identify errors caused either by incorrect data used by a credit scoring algorithm or by flaws in the algorithm’s decision logic itself.

We also investigated whether mortgage pricing varies by ethnicity, sex, sexual orientation and health condition. We concluded there doesn’t appear to be differences in mortgage pricing across these groups. Instead, we found these groups tend to have different types of mortgage products. While we found no direct pricing unfairness, we couldn’t categorically conclude there are no issues with ‘demand fairness’ through product availability for different groups.

If you submit your cancellation application to us before 31 March (or before the last day in February, if you're also regulated by the PRA), you won't have to pay the annual fee for the following financial year. However, if your business continues to operate for 3 months beyond this deadline – i.e. past 30 June – then you'll have to pay the annual fee for the financial year.

We have more information about: 

• What we consider when assessing an application for cancellation of authorisation.
• Payment of outstanding fees.

Last week, we announced the winners of our research competition, which aims to increase understanding of how regulation can support economic growth.

The competition attracted 43 entries from 41 organisations, including academics, think tanks and consultancies. We have selected 6 projects and awarded funding of up to £30,000 each.

The competition follows our literature review which highlighted gaps in the evidence for how regulation could best support growth.

We expect the research projects to be completed around 31 March 2025. The successful participants will also summarise their research in a report.

We have launched a new companion tool to the Financial Services Register of authorised firms, designed especially for consumers.

FCA Firm Checker makes it easier for consumers to check if a firm is authorised and has the correct permissions. It only shows firms and information relevant to consumers, uses simpler language and makes it easier to spot unauthorised and scam firms.

We are currently directing a small number of users to the tool so we can monitor its performance before promoting it widely later this year.

The FS Register will remain in place as the full public record of firms and individuals that are, or have been, authorised by us or the PRA.

On 31 January we secured a confiscation order of nearly £6million against convicted fraudster Guy Flintham. Mr Flintham is serving a 6-year prison sentence, having pleaded guilty to fraud by false representation.

The fraudulent investment scheme operated by Mr Flintham took £19m from over 240 investors. He made several fraudulent claims to investors, including about how the scheme was operated and the profits they were making. He falsified documents to support his claims. The confiscated funds will be distributed to the victims of his crimes. We will now contact the identified victims of Mr Flintham’s fraud to give them further information.

This data covers action taken against authorised firms breaching financial promotion rules, as well as referrals and investigations into unregulated activity.

Key findings include:

• Following our interventions, we had 19,766 financial promotions for authorised firms amended/withdrawn. This is an increase of 97.5%, compared to 10,008 in 2023.
• For unauthorised firms and individuals, we issued 2,240 alerts in 2024.

Our latest data shows we determined 99.3% of authorisation applications within statutory deadlines in Q3.

We continue to make it quicker and easier to apply for authorisation, while maintaining high standards to protect customers and to bolster the reputation of the UK market.

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

We’ll soon be publishing our review of firms’ treatment of customers in vulnerable circumstances.

We’re hosting a livestream event from our Stratford office, which will include a Panel Q&A with expert speakers to reflect on the findings, share learnings, and discuss next steps.

Sign up here.