Charles Randell has spoken on FCA’s commitment to the Economic Crime Plan and the importance of embedding fraud prevention in the development of new savings and investment policies. He encompassed within “investment fraud” a spectrum of unacceptable behaviours, ranging from poor value products, whether promoted through incompetence or greed, through to financial criminals. He said FCA must be ready to use all its tools appropriately from “skimmers” to “scammers”.
He moved on to discuss FCA’s role in not only authorising and supervising firms, but in taking administrative and criminal action where appropriate. He noted the huge scale of financial crime and the challenges for the supervisory and enforcement authorities. He suggested some initiatives that could help:
- whether policymakers embed thinking about the risks of skimming and scamming into their savings and investment policies;
- reducing the risk of confusion about what is regulated and what is not – including what is protected by FSCS; and
- making the corporate enablers play their part in doing more to spot and block suspected scammers