Bovill, the international financial regulatory consultancy, repsonds to the FCA's 2018/19 Annual Report.
Mark Spiers, Partner at Bovill, said:
“Overall, the FCA’s latest Annual Report reveals an expanding regulator, with staff costs and numbers up on the previous year, as well as a £44 million jump in penalties collected. With the broader roll-out of SMCR to come in December, the report unsurprisingly acknowledges that the regulator has focused much of its energy on enforcement in the last year. This is reflected in a huge leap in fines against individuals, from just £0.9 million in each of the two preceding years, to £80 million in the last year.
“From our conversations with clients, we know that the FCA has ratcheted up the pressure across almost every sector over the last year. There have been more reviews of the asset management industry, an increased focus on product governance, greater scrutiny of pensions advice in the retail investment space and conduct concerns in the wholesale brokers arena. All of this adds up to an increase in action and intervention from the FCA. Notably, the technology sector has also come in for closer examination, with reported incidents jumping in the last year. The FCA is taking a close look at innovative fintech offerings and intervening where it sees risks to markets or consumers in the P2P and crowd funding sectors.”
