Treasury Committee demands update on bank signature forgery allegations October 15, 2020 An influential committee of MPs have demanded an update from the City watchdog and National Crime Agency on their investigation into allegations of widespread signature forgery at British banks. The Treasury Select Committee first asked the Financial Conduct Authority and NCA to investigate allegations that banks used forged signatures on an industrial scale, leading to [...]
Regulator fines ARCM for breaches of short-selling rules October 14, 2020 The City regulator has handed its first fine for breaches of short-selling rules to activist hedge fund Asia Research and Capital Management. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) today announced it had fined ACRM £873,118 over failing to publicly disclose its net short position in Premier Oil built between February 2017 and July 2019. Short selling [...]
London-based digital lender for the wealthy gets UK banking licence October 8, 2020 A London-based digital lender targeting Britain’s affluent savings market, has received a restricted banking licence from UK regulators. Monument, which is targeting professionals, entrepreneurs and investors with a net worth of £250,000 to £5m, received an “authorisation with restriction” licence this week. The fintech, which is planning to launch in 2021, said it will offer [...]
Prepare for Libor’s demise, City regulator tells markets October 7, 2020 Financial markets need to prepare themselves for regulatory announcements about the Libor benchmark interest rate ceasing at the end of next year, the City watchdog said. “Market participants need to be ready for announcements later this year setting out what will happen at the end of 2021,” the FCA’s director of markets, Edwin Schooling Latter, [...]
FCA amps up crackdown on coronavirus-related fraud October 6, 2020 The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has ramped up efforts to crack down on coronavirus-related fraud during the pandemic through the rollout of two new sandbox services. Sandboxes allow companies to innovate new products without being subject to usual regulation, allowing them to test financial services before developing them globally. The FCA’s two new sandboxes, launched [...]
City watchdog secures £1.6m order against money laundering fugitive October 5, 2020 A fugitive businessman convicted of money laundering in one of the UK’s largest ever insider trading case should return £1.6m or have eight years added to his prison sentence, a London court ruled today. Luxury watch dealer Richard Baldwin was sentenced to five years and eight months in prison after being convicted of money laundering [...]
Finance watchdog slams Google for not removing scam adverts September 25, 2020 The UK’s financial regulator has accused Google of failing to address the use of its search engine by fraudsters placing scam adverts. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) yesterday said steps taken by Google to crack down on fake investment adverts “fall short” of requirements, and contribute to “a production line that proliferates scams”. Speaking at [...]
City watchdog blasts UK banks over money laundering safeguards September 24, 2020 Not all British banks are convinced of the need to invest large sums to crack down on dirty money, meaning the quality of anti-money laundering controls is falling short, the City watchdog’s chief enforcer said. Global lenders, including UK-based HSBC, Barclays and Standard Chartered, have come under increased scrutiny for their anti-money laundering (AML) efforts [...]
Will the FCA’s new plan mean cannabis companies can come in from the cold? September 24, 2020 How does the UK’s legal and financial establishment feel about the cannabis industry? The answer to that has changed significantly over the last few years, to the point that the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) now contemplates their listing on the London Stock Exchange. But the legal rules around how to do that are far from [...]
The lacklustre FCA is in desperate need of regulatory oversight September 18, 2020 It is unlikely that Juvenal, the first century Roman poet, had the Financial Conduct Authority in mind when he famously asked: “Who guards the guards?” A slew of depressingly similar scandals have, however, brought the question of regulatory oversight into sharp relief. Indeed, such has been the extent of the FCA’s negligence and downright incompetence [...]