Written by Ciara Davies

The FCA has published a new webpage that shows the number of financial promotions that have been amended or withdrawn due to non-compliance with its financial promotion rules.

Where the FCA identifies that an advert has breached the financial promotion rules, it will ask the firm that communicated or approved it to withdraw or change the advert to make it compliant. It may also ask the firm to consider whether any customers may have acted upon a non-compliant promotion and to take any necessary remedial action if consumers suffered harm as a result.

In order to provide greater transparency in this area, the FCA has decided to publish quarterly data on the outcomes of non-compliant financial promotions.

441 financial promotions were reviewed by the FCA in Q1 2021, with 38 cases resulting in 105 promotions being amended or withdrawn. Nearly half of the promotions reviewed related to retail lending, with just over a quarter relating to retail investments (where the promotion was approved by an authorised firm), and nearly a fifth relating to retail banking.

75% of the promotions that were amended or withdrawn related to website or social media promotions.