The UK’s FCA, one of the leading global financial regulators, wishes to filter out irregular financial product advertisement campaigns. Its new measures will task advertising companies ad well as financial firms to better identify misleading ads.
The official press release states that, at this time, any FCA-approved online firm can include promotional material from an unauthorized company. Parliament wishes to change that, as per the guidelines of the FCA. It will do so by henceforth requiring all licensed firms to check on the appropriateness of ad campaigns on their sites.
The FCA vision is to tighten the regulations of rogue ads and decrease their presence on public website as much as it can. The plan includes regular reports from FCA approved sites on what new and current promotional material they have, in order to combat deceptive and false campaigns.
According to the FCA’s Sarah Pritchard, one of the Executives Director of Markets Division, users are “taking less time between seeing a promotion and making a financial decision.” Therefore it is important that both they and the websites in question are equipped with correct and precise information prior to making a financial decision.
The legislation will give power to the British financial overseer to block more risky ads within less of a time period and more effectively, in order to protect the consumer.
