'Use it or lose it': FCA warns amid consumer investment harm clampdown

Firms fined more than £80m throughout 2019 and 2020

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has warned regulated firms to "use or lose" their regulatory permissions or risk having them revoked, amid a wider clampdown on potential consumer harm from the regulator.

Data published by the FCA today (18 January) reveals that during the first ten months of 2020 the regulator stopped applications for authorisation from 343 firm, roughly 10% of all applications for the period. The FCA opened over 1,500 supervisory cases involving scams or higher risk investments during the period, having received over 24,000 reports of unauthorised activity and published over 1,000 consumer alerts - an 82% increase on the previous year. As a result, the FCA instigated 47 enforcement investigations against unauthorised businesses in 2020, securing almost £6m to be retu...