The latest compliance issues in wealth management across the UK, Europe, Middle East and Africa.

FCA
The number of investigations conducted by the Financial Conduct Authority increased over the last year, but the number of total fines imposed reduced, WealthBriefing understands.

The UK financial watchdog has increased the number of its investigations by 75 per cent since last year.

The regulator issued a total of £3.8 million of fines within six penalty notices in the first five months of 2018. This is the lowest total level of fines since 2007, when the FCA charged a combined £3.24 million over 11 fines.

It is a lower figure than the same period last year, which ended at £163.3. A figure than was mostly down to the £163 million penalty Deutsche Bank received for anti-money laundering failings.

“There has been no change in our approach to misconduct or financial penalties,” A spokesperson for FCA said. “We remain committed to investigating and holding firms and individuals to account for misconduct and ensuring wrongdoers pay for the costs of remediation. In fact the FCA is doing more enforcement not less - over the last year alone there has been a significant increase, of 75 per cent, in the number of investigations we have commenced.”

ADGM
The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) and Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), the International Financial Centre in Abu Dhabi, have entered into a cooperation agreement.

The agreement will enable both institutions to jointly promote and support financial services innovation in Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). 

This cooperation framework enables both regulators to work closely in projects and fintech start-ups to ADGM’s fintech regulatory laboratory and the HK-SFC fintech contact point.