We are still short of a few details but he at least seems determined to grasp the thorny, but increasingly painful, nettle of financial fraud.
The move is a timely follow up to the ban on pensions cold calling in 2019.
That ban seems to have bedded in well and there have been some well publicised fines on pension cold callers.
There are some risks here, of course. Banning cold calling of financial products could also harm some legitimate marketing campaigns but all in all it’s a welcome move.
The new fraud drive will also come with some much needed beefed up anti-fraud measures. The Home Office will set up a new fraud squad with 500 investigators and Action Fraud will be replaced with a £30m fraud reporting service.
All of this is step in the right direction but it will not end financial fraud which has become one of the UK’s biggest criminal problems.
There are clear signs that many of the UK’s police forces struggle to deal with fraud which can take years to prosecute.
The move will also not crack down on the growing number of cold calls from overseas and persistent and determined fraudsters will always either flout the rules or get round them.
It is right, however, that the government has woken up to the huge threat that financial fraud poses to the UK economy, not to mention the many elderly and vulnerable savers robbed of their hard-earn savings.
As Mr Sunak said himself, financial fraud now costs the country £7bn a year and nine out of 10 internet users in the UK have been targeted by online scams. Most of us will have stories of friends or acquaintances who have become victims.
Many Financial Planners may wonder, however, if it has anything to do with them and I believe it does.
The corrosive effect of financial fraud, in all its forms, does more to destroy the trust of consumers than anything else. I wonder how many people have been put off investing or saving because they can’t find anyone to trust. They are wary of financial advisers for this reason. There is no government guarantee on trusted advisers.
This new initiative deserve the profession’s support. Less financial fraud can only be good for building consumer trust and for the financial advice profession too.
• We’re taking a break on Monday for the Coronation Bank Holiday. If you are celebrating the event in some way we wish you an excellent time and if you are just taking a break, enjoy the second of three bank holidays this weekend. Not long until the next one!
Kevin O’Donnell is editor of Financial Planning Today and has worked as a journalist and editor for over three decades.
