FCA sets out whistleblower commitments

The move follows a survey in January of 24 whistleblowers who shared information with the watchdog on their experiences.

The regulator has committed to providing whistleblowers with more detail on what has been done with the information provided, or reasons for taking or not taking action.

It has pledged to improve the use of whistleblowers’ information across the FCA and to enhance its webform – the most popular way for whistleblowers to get in contact – to fully capture every whistleblower’s disclosure.

The FCA also promised to engage with the Department for Business and Trade to support a review of whistleblower legislation to develop the wider whistleblowing system.

In 2021, the FCA ran an ‘In confidence, with confidence’ campaign to encourage people working in financial services to report compliance failures.

Between April 2021 and March 2022, the authority received and assessed 1,041 whistleblower reports with 2,114 separate allegations.

Intelligence

Therese Chambers, executive director of enforcement and market oversight at the FCA said: “We need the intelligence 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.”

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