Revealed: The FCA received 746 notifications of non-financial misconduct amongst senior City staff in 2020 and 2021. What’s next?

Today’s episode is a deep dive into the Financial Conduct Authority’s efforts to tackle finance workers’ misbehaviour outside of the day job. In it, I reveal that the FCA received 746 notifications of such misconduct amongst senior City staff in 2020 and 2021. Of those, 646 related to breaches of Covid restrictions.

Together with today’s guests, we discuss the action the FCA is likely to take as a result of such behaviour, what finance firms should be doing now to better track and ultimately stamp out non-financial misconduct and plenty more in between.

Penny Miller is a partner and Head of the Financial Services Regulatory practice at law firm Simmons & Simmons.

Mark Turner is a managing director in the Financial Services Compliance and Regulation practice at risk consultancy Kroll.

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In response to the topics covered in this podcast, a spokesperson for the FCA said: 

“We expect high standards of character and probity from those who work in the financial services industry. And we have shown our willingness to ban those who fall short, for example those guilty of serious sexual offences"

“It is important to be clear about how our remit operates here," the spokesperson continued. "We take action where established non-financial misconduct reveals a person lacks fitness and properness to carry out a regulated function. The real measure of success is not just ensuring enforcement action is taken in appropriate cases but that firms themselves have raised the conduct bar to ensure high standards of fitness and properness exist among staff.”