So, some data about the UK financial services industry

Let’s look at some data published this week by the Financial Conduct Authority. We’re not pretending there are any great themes here – although decide for yourself!

Gender

For financial services firms to carry out specific activities, they must have people “approved” by the FCA to carry out certain roles.

There are 150,229 approved persons. 18% of those are women. By a process of ineluctable logic, 82% of approved persons are men.

Age

The age profile of those 150,229 approved persons breaks down like this:

Who does what?

Those approved persons hold 240,580 “controlled functions” between them. By the same process, it follows that an approved person can hold more than one controlled function. These controlled functions break down:

• There are 122,998 “customer” functions: These – for example, financial advisors, traders and investment managers – deal with “customers”, particularly in an advisory capacity.
• There are 117,557 “significant influence” functions. The bosses; they, in the FCA’s description, “exert considerable influence on the conduct of the authorised firm’s regulatory activities.”
• There are 25 LIBOR functions.

The largest controlled function population is the customer function CF30, which is necessary for dealing with retail or wholesale customers. 28% of CF30 persons are approved to perform this function at banks and building societies.

Complaints about financial promotions: bad credit

The FCA reviewed 3,604 financial promotions in the second six months of 2014. 181 cases resulted in one or more promotions being amended or withdrawn. The subject of those 181 cases breaks down like this:

Project Innovate

The FCA launched its “Innovation Hub” on 28 October 2014. We discussed it.

The Hub, in the FCA’s words, “helps businesses who are developing innovative approaches that can benefit consumers in financial services markets”. The FCA wants to “foster innovation in the industry to genuinely improve the lives of customers”. Businesses can approach the Hub for help in better understanding the regulatory framework, how it applies to them and how to prepare an authorisation application.

In the first two months of its life, the Hub received 83 requests for support. It offered support to 58% of those requests. (That’s 48.) Where support to those 48 has been completed, 61% have been provided with “an informal steer to help guide their decision-making”. (That’s 29.)

From feedback received, the FCA says that 86% of respondents say that their experience of the Hub has been “good or excellent”.

Consultation papers

As the industry experienced, the FCA published 32 consultation papers in 2014.

Source: FCA Data Bulletin, January 2015