FCA asks Collateral investors to come forward for an apology

The FCA has apologised to people who invested in peer-to-peer firm Collateral, whose directors fraudulently changed the firm’s details on the FCA’s interim permission register to make it look like it had interim consumer credit permissions when it did not. The firm did then apply for full authorisation, but the FCA’s checks did not pick up that the interim permission was not valid, and, once the FCA did realise this, it did not act quickly enough to tell the firm to stop business and correct the register.

It later prosecuted the directors, who were imprisoned in 2023.

The FCA has upheld over 300 complaints it has received from investors about its failures and now invites anyone else affected to register a complaint before the end of March 2025.