The confidence dividend: Tackling financial crime to strengthen markets

Introduction

It’s been said that we have a confidence problem here in the UK. And I don’t just mean our classic British reservedness.

We are home to some of the deepest, most sophisticated financial markets in the world, so why is it that swathes of the population don’t invest a penny?

Why is it that more than seven million UK adults prefer to keep £10,000 or more in cash savings – money that could be working harder for them through investments?

Various reasons are put forward – risk appetite, cultural attitude, financial education – and of course specific reasons will vary from individual to individual. But what we do know, is that when things go wrong, people remember.

Bad experiences in financial services – like PPI, pensions mis-selling, scams – affect trust even years later and cast a long shadow over the system as a whole. Less retail participation, less liquidity, less innovation. And ultimately, lower economic growth.

So when I look at financial crime as the Executive Director of Enforcement and Market Oversight, I don’t see it as just a criminal issue – it’s also a market issue. And fighting it is a growth strategy.

Today I’d like to share with you a bit about the FCA’s thinking: 

• How we are fighting financial crime to support growth and market integrity.
• And how we see the role of regulation more broadly in helping to build and maintain confidence in UK markets.

Building trust through proportionate and effective enforcement

Let me start with our Enforcement work – possibly one of the most visible parts of what we do at the FCA. 

The prison sentences, the fines, the CEOs banned from industry – they are all important in showing that the system has teeth. 

They give people confidence that when things go wrong, offenders will be held to account, victims made good, and the wider system protected.

We’ve heard criticism that the FCA doesn’t always move fast enough. 

And yes, investigations can take time: often incredibly complex cases, mountains of digital evidence, not to mention the realities of the court system.

But we have listened. 

Seven recent cases have reached a public outcome within 16 months or less; compare that to 2023/24, where it took an average of 42 months to close cases.

So we are being faster and more focused, and we will keep working hard to improve those timelines.

Of course speed also needs to come with results, and we’ve seen plenty of those recently.

After our investigation, Raymondip Bedi and Patrick Mavanga received lengthy prison sentences for a cold-calling crypto scam that stole more than £1.5m from dozens of victims.  

And by pursuing and punishing these kinds of predatory crooks, we aren’t just protecting individual consumers. 

We are protecting the wider integrity of our market too – something that matters for all the firms here today.

Whether you are raising capital, trading or investing, you will know that your business depends on clean, well-run markets that inspire trust in your clients.

So where we see that integrity threatened, we will act. 

Take Metro Bank. Its CEO and CFO knowingly published incorrect information, misleading investors about their financial strength. We fined Metro more than £10m for breaching Listing Rules some time ago; and, more recently, the executives personally in the hundreds of thousands.

Certain offences are notoriously difficult to investigate and prosecute. Insider dealing, for example. But earlier this year, we secured convictions against a pair of siblings in the Korfuzis case – including the longest insider dealing sentence ever imposed in the UK. 

A big win for justice, and for our markets. So we won’t shy away from the hard cases. Or the high-profile ones – the Staley case has shown that no one is beyond scrutiny. 

We expect firms to do the right thing – for which we make no apologies – and where they do, we will work with them.

This summer we took action against Barclays Bank UK for failing to adequately manage money laundering risk when banking WealthTek, whose proprietor, John Dance, we are prosecuting for fraud and money laundering.

But because Barclays co-operated extensively with our investigation, and made a voluntary redress payment of more than £6 million to affected consumers, we took that into account and reduced their fine. 

We always prioritise redress, and knowing this drives confidence.  

Even so, that fine totalled more than £3 million – money that could have been used more productively elsewhere in their business.  

So the lesson is clear: compliance may have costs, but crime will cost you far more. 

This is proportionate, effective enforcement in action.

Tough where it needs to be. Fair when firms step up. Always focused on maintaining high standards, trust and confidence.

Preventing financial crime and driving confidence through support

But we have to remember that enforcement is only one part of a much bigger picture.

As our new Deputy CEO Sarah Pritchard put it: we don’t want to constantly be hosing down fires. We want to stop them breaking out in the first place.

That means doing more to prevent financial crime by building confidence upstream – both for consumers and firms.

For consumers, our new Firm Checker – a companion tool to the Financial Services Register, but designed especially for consumers – is an easy way to check whether a firm is authorised.

It joins our established ScamSmart campaign, which has been visited by more than 2 million people since the site launched.

But perhaps the most exciting piece of work underway is our proposed new model for Targeted Support. 

By bridging the advice gap between generic guidance and regulated advice, we believe Targeted Support could help give millions more people the confidence to invest, at lower cost for better returns.

We have accelerated this work and look to conclude before the end of the year. Once complete, we will look at future reform to simplified advice.

A really exciting and genuinely revolutionary development in financial advice.

For those of you who responded to the June consultation – thank you.

We will be publishing a short follow-up soon with some minor clarifications and changes that would be needed to the Handbook, so please do let us know your thoughts on that. 

And what about confidence for firms?

Well we have invested substantially to improve the early regulatory experience.

Increased resource, digitisation of forms, and our Pre-Application Support Service (PASS) which is helping firms to raise the quality of their applications.

These all have a positive impact on the speed with which we are able to authorise - 99% of all applications were determined within statutory deadlines in Q1 this year.

But as well as giving firms confidence that strong applications will get through faster, we are also being more assertive in keeping out the firms that don’t meet our standards. 

The firms that pose a greater risk to market participants… 

The firms that aren’t necessarily doing the right thing…

The firms that threaten the integrity of, and trust in, our markets.

That is why in 2024 we cancelled more than 1,500 authorisations – 20% more than in 2023, and over triple the figure for 2021.

Innovation and international

So some really strong enforcement results, and authorisations metrics going the right way. 

But enduring confidence doesn’t come from numbers or graphs.

It’s about a sustained culture change over the longer term. A sense that markets are modern, open, resilient.

We see supporting innovation as a really important element in that:

Our AI Lab and Tech Sprints giving firms safe spaces to test ideas, iron out the kinks, and build confidence before coming to market…

Our Digital Securities Sandbox allowing firms to trial new Distributed Ledger Technology under controlled conditions…

And you may have seen that last month, we approved the London Stock Exchange to operate a PISCES platform – a new kind of market which will allow private companies to access a broader range of investors.

More PISCES approvals are in the pipeline, and though I can’t say too much on specifics, it’s been really encouraging to see interest from such a wide range of providers.

In public markets, we are considering a consolidated tape for equities, which will give investors a much fuller picture of market liquidity.

We want to help create a genuine funding continuum from the private to public markets, so that businesses are supported across all stages of the growth journey.

That big picture, long-term thinking is driving our approach at the international level too.

When I speak to counterparts, we share many of the same challenges, and partnership is crucial – especially given the cross-border nature of modern markets.

In June, we led a group of 9 international regulators – from Canada all the way to Australia – in a week of action against unlawful finfluencers.

In the UK alone: multiple arrests, hundreds of posts and websites touting illegal content taken down, hundreds of thousands of people saved from potentially harmful content.   

And we will continue to work with our international partners – it’s in all our interests to offer and accept help on shared challenges.

Of course we are realistic that in some areas there are diverging approaches, such as on crypto.

This isn’t an area where the UK can or should leap in unilaterally.

Crypto is a global sector, so we need a domestic regulatory framework that is in line with international standards – standards we are actively shaping at IOSCO, the FSB, and FATF.

The UK Government set out its approach in November 2024, and we followed with an indicative roadmap for regulation.

We are engaging with the Government, industry, consumer groups and our regulatory partners so that future rules get the right balance for our statutory objectives, and for our markets.

Looking forward with confidence

It is really easy to write gloomy headlines – bad news sells. But we shouldn’t talk the UK down. The Global Financial Centres Index shows London closing the gap on New York.

Glencore, after reviewing its options, confirmed it would maintain its London listing. And just today, the FTSE 100 is welcoming Metlen Energy and Metals, a Greek group who switched its listing to the UK this summer. Why?

Because, the company says, it brings visibility, enhanced liquidity and access to international investors – which supports its goal of transforming from national to international champion. That’s a big vote of confidence in the depth and reach of UK markets. 

And although IPO markets have been quiet everywhere this year, there are clear signs they are springing back to life. The sight lines we have of the UK IPO pipeline give us every reason to expect a resurgence – and more stories like Metlen’s – soon. 

We know there is more for the FCA to do as an ambassador for UK financial services, and we aren’t just sitting around waiting for the phone to ring.

We are in live conversations with potential issuers choosing a listing destination, myth-busting where rules are misunderstood.

And of course we are getting out and about to events like this where we get to hear from you directly.

We plan to publish a consultation paper on transaction reporting later this year and look forward to your continued engagement. The hard work on your part is worth it.

There’s another important way we’re trying to be proportionate in our approach to the industry and that is, a calculated increase in our risk appetite to support growth.

An example of how we’re willing to innovate and take more risks is our plan[3] for a ‘Private Intermittent Securities and Capital Exchange System’, or PISCES.

This is a new type of stock market for private companies currently being designed. It will allow firms to trade shares in private companies on a periodic basis, outside the Market Abuse Regulation (MAR) regime.

It’s essentially a ‘private plus’ mechanism, building on the private market model. But it is not a public market for private companies. Transaction reporting will not apply in this market, and disclosures made by companies will be made to eligible investors only. And companies will retain more control over aspects of their trading events, such as timing, frequency and participation.

We hear you when you say the public model is sometimes burdensome in terms of regulatory requirements and will not be suitable for all scenarios. But if there’s a proportionate way for us to try something new, something that may contribute to growth, we’re open to trying it.

Conclusion

So let me leave you with this.

Financial crime controls may look like compliance costs on a spreadsheet. But they are the ultimate investment – saving firms money and paying dividends in the one commodity our markets can’t function without: confidence.

Enforcement is important, but it’s not a silver bullet.

Real confidence has to be built upstream – through prevention, proportionality and collaboration. That takes time, and it takes all of us – regulators and industry – working together.

But the UK already has a lot to feel confident about: deep talent pools, strong partnership working, a global reputation for high standards and integrity.

So let’s back ourselves – acting with confidence, to inspire confidence.