The FCA is planning a raft of measures to improve support for whistleblowers to give them more confidence in coming forward.
A recent qualitative survey by the FCA with 24 whistleblowers found that they wanted more confidence to support their actions in highlighting poor behaviour or misconduct at their firms.
The FCA says measures will include sharing further information with whistleblowers on how it acted on their tip offs; improving the use of information provided by whistleblowers and improving how it captures information from whistleblowers.
About 1,000 whistleblowers a year contact the FCA.
In December 2022 the top 3 whistleblowing complaints to the FCA were about: fitness and propriety, Treating Customers Fairly and the culture of the organisation. Other complaints included consumer detriment, unauthorised business, fraud, money laundering and bribery and corruption.
The FCA will:
• give whistleblowers more detail on what has been done with the information provided, or reasons for taking or not taking action
• improve the use of whistleblowers’ information across the FCA, such as how to make the best use of data
• enhance its webform – the most popular way for whistleblowers to contact the FCA
• engage with the Department for Business and Trade to support a review of whistleblower legislation to enhance the wider whistleblowing system
The FCA said that whistleblowing has allowed the FCA to “identify and correct” problems including unauthorised firms taking on customers and failings in firms’ own internal whistleblowing procedures.
Therese Chambers, executive director of enforcement and market oversight, 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.”
Latest data from the FCA shows that in Q4 2022 the FCA received 276 new whistleblowing reports containing 785 allegations. For the same period 2021 it received 279 reports.
