The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has announced steps it is taking to improve whistleblowers’ experience and confidence in its processes.
Following its survey of 24 whistleblowers, conducted in early 2022 and published on 4 May 2023, the regulator says it will now provide them with more detail on what it has done with the information provided, as well as reasons for taking or not taking action.
It will also improve the use of whistleblowers’ information across the FCA to make best use of the data and ensure whistleblowing processes are as efficient as possible. In addition, the FCA reported that it would enhance the form used by whistleblowers to make contact with the regulator.
Other new action announced by the watchdog was engagement with the government department for business and trade to support a review of whistleblower legislation, with a view to enhancing the broader whistleblowing system.
The UK watchdog said that whistleblowing provides it with insights that allow it to identify and correct problems such as mis-sold loans, unauthorised firms taking on customers and failings in firms’ internal whistleblowing processes.
Need for intelligence
Therese Chambers, executive director of enforcement and market oversight, said: “We need the intelligence that whistleblowers provide, to identify and act on problems in the firms we regulate.
“We want to make sure we’re capturing and using the information provided by whistleblowers as effectively as possible, and to give them as much information as the law allows on how we have acted on their concerns.”
The FCA received 1,041 whistleblowing disclosures between April 2021 and March 2022.
By 20 April 2022, these had led to “significant action” to manage harm in three cases and action to reduce harm in 96 cases, with 801 cases remaining under assessment at that time.
