DP21/1: Strengthening our financial promotion rules for high-risk investments and firms approving financial promotions

Read DP 21/1[1]

The DP seeks views on 3 areas where changes could be made to protect consumers from harm:

• the classification of high-risk investments
• the segmentation of the high-risk investment market
• the responsibilities of firms which approve financial promotions.

The feedback to this DP will help to shape the changes we plan to consult on later in the year and to ensure they have the intended impact.

This DP follows our recent interventions to address harm from high-risk investments, including banning the mass-marketing of speculative illiquid securities[2] and our new Investment Harms campaign[3].

Who this applies to:

• consumers and consumer organisations
• authorised firms which approve financial promotions for unauthorised persons (section 21 approvers), whether for high-risk investments or otherwise
• issuers of non-mainstream pooled investments, speculative illiquid securities and non-readily realisable securities
• investment-based crowdfunding (IBCF) platforms and other intermediaries distributing investments to consumers
• peer-to-peer (P2P) platforms
• trade bodies for the IBCF and P2P sectors
• issuers of listed or exchange-traded securities, and trade bodies for these issuers
• investment companies, and trade bodies for this sector
• issuers of other types of investments
• firms operating in the cryptoassets market
• financial advisers

Next steps:

This consultation has now closed. We will publish feedback on responses once we have reviewed your comments.

On 19 January 2022, we published CP22/2: Strengthening our financial promotion rules for high risk investments, including cryptoassets[4].