Nearly 20,000 Misleading Financial Ads Withdrawn or Amended in 2024 as FCA Steps Up Action

The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) unveiled its 2024 financial promotions data on Friday, revealing a significant increase in regulatory interventions. The FCA's efforts targeted failures in financial promotions from both authorised firms and unauthorised entities and individuals.

In 2024, the FCA amended or withdrew 19,766 financial promotions from authorised firms, marking a 97.5% surge compared to 10,008 in 2023. The regulator has highlighted concerns with promotions related to cryptoassets, debt solutions, and claims management companies (CMCs). Specifically, the FCA's engagement with 46 authorised CMCs led to the amendment or withdrawal of 9,197 financial promotions last year, accounting for 46% of the 19,766 total.

source: FCA

For unauthorised firms and individuals, the FCA issued 2,240 alerts in 2024. Although this represents a slight 2% decrease from 2,286 alerts in 2023, the number remains high compared to historical levels. These alerts serve to caution the public about unauthorised, scam, or clone firms.

The FCA continues to urge social media platforms to do more to take proactive measures against illegal financial promotions. In the past year, reviews of over 3,700 websites and social media platforms resulted in more than 1,600 alerts to UK consumers about these unauthorised firms. The FCA also launched targeted action against financial influencers (finfluencers), interviewing 20 individuals under caution and issuing 38 alerts against finfluencer social media accounts that may feature unlawful promotions.

Lucy Castledine, Director of Consumer Investments at the FCA, said: “Over the past year, we have seen a growing number of misleading and illegal financial promotions. We have stepped up our efforts in response to make sure that financial promotions are clear, fair, and accurate.”

Castledine added, “We expect firms to take the necessary steps to meet standards and will continue to work with other bodies, including social media platforms, to prevent illegal promotions being pushed at consumers.”