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Financial watchdog chief calls on Meta to up its game with blocking investment fraud

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The FCA said that 83 per cent of the firm's DB scheme transfer advice "failed to comply with its minimum required standards, and customers risked financial loss as a result of the poor advice they received".
The FCA said that 83 per cent of the firm's DB scheme transfer advice "failed to comply with its minimum required standards, and customers risked financial loss as a result of the poor advice they received".

The head of the UK’s financial regulator has called on Facebook to take action against investment scams.

Writing in The Telegraph, Nikhil Rathi, head of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), said Facebook’s parent company Meta needed to do more to tackle fraudsters targeting vulnerable people online.

It comes as the Online Safety Bill progresses through parliament, and the UK continues its clamp down on Big Tech.

Under the proposed bill, Silicon Valley giants could face fines of £18m or up to 10 per cent of turnover if they fail to protect users from financial scams.

As it stands, any investment firm can post their ads on Facebook, even if they aren’t regulated by the FCA. 

“Following our public intervention, Google changed policy to only permit FCA-registered firms to advertise financial promotions with them”, wrote Rathi.

“We now expect commitments from Meta, Twitter and others to be turned into clear timetables for action.”

A spokesman for Meta told the paper: “Meta has committed to introducing a new onboarding process this year which will require UK regulated financial services to be authorised by the FCA prior to serving financial services adverts on our platforms.”

Just last month, City PM reported that crypto investment fraud in the UK has continued to rise sharply with a total of 9,458 cases reported in 2021, up 64 per cent.