The Financial Conduct Authority (the FCA) has set out the finalised revisions to its Enforcement Guide, including an amended investigation publicity policy.
The FCA insists the updated Enforcement Guide will be a more user-friendly document that benefits firms and consumers.
The streamlined guide should make it easier for firms and advisers to access key information.
In a statement the FCA said: “We will assess the impact of the revised Enforcement Guide, and public and industry confidence in our enforcement work. We will also proactively monitor other relevant data and stakeholder feedback we receive.”
The regulator stated that its enforcement work directly reduces the damage that fraud and financial crime causes to the UK markets’ international reputation, growth and competitiveness.
But it also recognised that its average investigation times were too long. The FCA insisted it had focused its file of enforcement cases in line with its strategic priorities and had significantly accelerated its investigations.
The FCA first published its Enforcement Guide in 2007, and it has since grown significantly.
Its recent consultation included proposals for a new investigation publicity policy to provide a measured increase in transparency under a ‘public interest’ test. Following feedback, the FCA revised these proposals and limited the resulting policy changes and kept its ‘exceptional circumstances’ test in its existing investigation publicity policy for regulated firms.
Last week, MS highlighted FCA intention to make it easier for firms to submit customer complaints data by standardising the number of times it asks regulated firms to send this data.
The idea being that this would help firms to plan more effectively, as well as helping the regulator process the information more consistently.
