The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has reportedly intensified its enforcement efforts, bringing a record number of criminal charges and doubling the number of firms stripped of regulatory approval.
Despite this, the FCA collected only £35.3 million in fines in the year to April, down from £212.6 million the previous year, marking its lowest total in over a decade. Chief Executive Nikhil Rathi stressed the importance of balancing the crackdown on financial crime with fostering innovation and economic growth. He acknowledged that maintaining the UK's global competitiveness requires accepting some level of risk. "If we want the UK to maintain its international competitive edge, then we need to be bold and accept that we will not, nor should we try to, stop every failure," he noted in the regulator's annual report.
The FCA charged 21 people with financial crimes and increased successful prosecutions to 11, up from just one the previous year. Notably, while the number of fraud cases opened by the regulator fell by nearly half, it opened 837 financial crime cases — up from 613 during the previous year. The FCA has also taken a tough stance on crypto companies, rejecting 87% of applications from firms looking for approval of their anti-money laundering systems and issuing 450 consumer alerts regarding crypto asset promoters.
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