PIMFA Weekly News Bulletin

PIMFA WEEKLY NEWS BULLETIN 9 May 2023

FCA Quarterly Whistleblowing Data for Q4 2022

The FCA published their quarterly whistleblowing data for Q4 2022 (October – December).

During this period the FCA received 279 new reports with top five natures of allegations being: fitness and propriety, treating customers fairly, FSMA, culture of the organization, and compliance. On top of that, there were 25 reports regarding fraud, and 11 reports about money laundering.

For details, please refer to the FCA’s website

FCA sets out steps to improve whistleblower confidence

The FCA has published the results of a qualitative survey of whistleblowers who disclosed their concerns about wrongdoing to the FCA.

The survey was conducted in order to understand whistleblowers' experience of reporting to the FCA.

The FCA was disappointed to see dissatisfaction expressed by many whistleblowers and has set out a number of actions which it intends to undertake to address issues highlighted by survey respondents. The Department for Business and Trade is reviewing the law in relation to whistleblower protections.

Government’s Fraud Strategy

Earlier this week in May 2023, the Home office introduced the Government’s new Fraud Strategy. The strategy aims to reduce fraud by 10% on 2019 levels by 2025.

The measures outlined include:

• making fraud a priority for the police

• reviewing use of mass text aggregators and blocking fraud at source

• replacing Action Fraud with a state-of-the-art system for victims to report fraud and cybercrimes to the police

• making legislative changes to reimburse more fraud victims

• banning cold calls on financial products to stop fraudsters selling fake investmentsPIMFA welcomes this development and will be closely monitoring the Government’s new Fraud Strategy

Please find the full release here