Category Archives: Financial Conduct Authority

Financial firms must boost protections against AI scams, UK regulator to warn

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Financial Conduct Authority chief to highlight risks of ‘deepfake’ fraud as well as benefits of Artificial Intelligence

The head of the UK’s financial regulator is to warn that banks, investors and insurers will have to ramp up their spending to combat scammers using artificial intelligence to commit fraud.

Nikhil Rathi, the chief executive of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), will say that there are risks of “cyber fraud, cyber-attacks and identity fraud increasing in scale and sophistication and effectiveness” as artificial intelligence (AI) becomes more widespread, in a speech in London on Wednesday.

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Watchdog summons UK bank bosses to discuss weak savings rates

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Financial Conduct Authority to meet executives on Thursday as part of its investigation into savings market

UK bank bosses have been summoned to a meeting with the financial watchdog this week amid mounting concerns that they are profiting from rising interest rates by offering paltry savings rates to customers.

Executives from the big high street names Lloyds Banking Group, NatWest, HSBC and Barclays, as well as from smaller lenders, are due to attend a meeting at the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) on Thursday to discuss concerns that savings rates are lagging far behind the soaring costs of mortgages and loans.

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Direct Line ordered to review five years of car claims after underpayments

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Insurer told to reassess vehicle write-offs to identify any unfair settlements

Britain’s second-biggest car insurer, Direct Line, has been ordered to go back through five years of claims after admitting it had underpaid some customers who had their cars and vans written off.

After an investigation into the car insurance market that began in December 2022, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), this week ordered Direct Line to conduct a review of claims where vehicles had been written off “to identify any policyholders who received unfair settlements and provide them with appropriate redress”.

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Britain’s biggest banks under pressure to pass on higher interest rates to savers

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Unite says their analysis shows banks have made £7bn in extra profit from the rise in borrowing costs

Britain’s biggest banks are under pressure to pass on higher interest rates to savers after figures showing they have made an extra £7bn by refusing to do so, and as they stand to benefit from a tax cut announced by Jeremy Hunt.

On the day the Bank of England is expected to announce a further rise in interest rates, the Unite trade union said banks had already made billions of pounds in extra profit from the dramatic rise in borrowing costs.

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Sub-prime lender Amigo avoids £73m fine after claiming hardship

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FCA finds company put customers at high risk of harm by failing to assess whether they could repay loans

The sub-prime lender Amigo has dodged a £73m fine despite having put consumers at a “high risk” of harm, amid fears that the financial penalty could have led to its collapse.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) investigation found Amigo put business interests ahead of its customers, by failing to properly assess whether customers, or their guarantors, could afford to repay loans they applied for – noting faults in both its automated tech and human oversight between November 2018 and March 2020.

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Scams: FCA blocks more than 10,000 ads from Instagram, Facebook and YouTube

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Financial watchdog warns over rise of ‘fin-fluencers’ targeting younger people on social media

More than 10,000 misleading financial promotions and scams aimed at consumers via social media sites such as Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and TikTok have been identified and targeted by the financial watchdog during the past year.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said the use of social media marketing channels and the rise of so-called “fin-fluencers” – particularly directing investment products at younger age groups – exploded last year, resulting in a record number of takedown notices and alerts.

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Barclays could be fined £50m for failing to disclose 2008 Qatari deal

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Provisional fine relates to £322m bank paid to Gulf state allegedly in exchange for £4bn investment to save lender from bailout

The City watchdog could fine Barclays up to £50m for failing to disclose a deal struck with Qatar at the height of the financial crisis, reviving a controversial episode that failed to gain traction in UK courts.

The provisional fine – which Barclays is in the process of appealing against – relates to the £322m the bank paid to Qatar in 2008, allegedly in exchange for the gas-rich Gulf state investing £4bn, helping save the lender from a UK government bailout.

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Buy now, pay later grocery schemes are a ‘debt trap’ for struggling families

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UK regulators say the latest surge in interest-free credit does not offer enough protection for those who are slipping into debit

Families hit by the cost-of-living crisis are being targeted by credit firms offering “buy now, pay later” deals on weekly groceries, pet food and hot drinks.

Shoppers are urged to spread their payments for staple foods and treats to help cope with “these difficult times”. One promotion states: “Regardless of your credit rating, we will offer you a tonne of credit to do your shopping with.”

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Jes Staley: account of relationship with Epstein comes under scrutiny

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Regulators will compare the version of events he shared with Barclays with emails from JP Morgan

When it was revealed last year that Jes Staley had sailed his luxury yacht to a meeting with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on his private Caribbean island, the Barclays boss told colleagues he was “going nowhere”.

But on Monday Staley resigned as chief executive of Barclays after the board said it had been made aware of the preliminary conclusions of an investigation by City regulators into how he had characterised his relationship with Epstein to Barclays. Staley intends to contest the report’s findings.

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Credit Suisse fined £350m over Mozambique ‘tuna bonds’ loan scandal

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Bank also pleads guilty to wire fraud and forgives hundred of millions of dollars of debt owed by country

Credit Suisse has been fined nearly £350m by global regulators, pleaded guilty to wire fraud, and agreed to forgive hundreds of millions of dollars worth of debt owed by Mozambique in an attempt to draw a line under the long-running “tuna bonds” loan scandal.

The Swiss banking company had been accused of “serious” failings in its financial crime controls by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), and has entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the US Department of Justice that will put the bank under heavy monitoring for three years after having “defrauded US and international investors”.

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Top banks could be investigated over $20bn fire sale of hedge fund assets

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Collapse of Archegos has reportedly prompted SEC and FCA inquiries into Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, Nomura and others

UK and US regulators are looking into whether global investment banks breached rules by holding group discussions shortly before launching a fire sale of nearly $20bn worth of assets belonging to the distressed hedge fund Archegos Capital Management, according to reports.

The Securities Exchange Commission is said to have requested further information from major US banks Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley, as well as Japan’s Nomura and Swiss lender Credit Suisse about a meeting with Archegos founder Bill Hwang on Thursday.

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Scandal-hit NMC Health on verge of liquidation

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Administrators outline position of UAE’s largest healthcare provider which faces multiple investigations

Joint administrators for NMC Health, the holding company of the UAE-based healthcare provider NMC Group, have said the company will probably be dissolved or put into liquidation.

Administrators from the consulting firm Alvarez & Marsal Europe were appointed in April to oversee the hospital operator, after an application from one of its biggest creditors, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank.

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