Department heads at the Financial Conduct Authority have pledged to be more dynamic in speaking with the investment industry and cease the practice of “sporadic communications”.
The comments were made at an investment conference hosted by Morningstar, by FCA consumer investments heads of department Sara Woodroffe and Kate Tuckley.
Woodroffe says: “We are doing our best to be purposeful, predictable and proportionate. Really this is about you hearing from the FCA in a much clearer, more regular way, with no more sporadic communications.”
As part of this drive, the FCA has pledged to publish a yearly annual markets report. In its first of these reports, the FCA pledged to strengthen data quality regarding insider trading, and encouraged the use of AI tools to improve surveillance and identify financial crime.
On financial crime, Woodroffe and Tuckley pointed to efforts to charge and convict so-called “finfluencers” spreading misinformation about investments online through social media.
Tuckley also identified drives within the FCA to reduce the regulatory burden, including eliminating areas such as duplicated returns.
Also speaking at the Morningstar conference was Pippa Malmgren, an American tech entrepreneur and economist. She spoke of how Kevin Warsh, who was Malmgren’s deputy when she was part of the George W Bush administration, is to undertake “radical regime change” when he becomes chairman of the Federal Reserve, with the Board depending much more heavily on algorithmic assessments when making economic policy decisions.
Malmgren also predicted imminent changes in the world economy that would “dwarf the Industrial Revolution”, including through radical developments in nuclear technology, and massive changes to the world economy through developments such as stablecoin and its use as an artificial reserve currency by the US federal government.
