The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) reported a marked increase in significant action arising from whistleblowing cases in the second quarter, while overall intervention levels in closed cases remained broadly in line with a year earlier.
According to the regulator’s latest quarterly whistleblowing data, the FCA took significant action in 56 cases closed in Q2, seven times the level recorded a year earlier. Significant action can include enforcement activity, a section 166 skilled-person review or restrictions on a firm’s permissions or an individual’s approval.
The FCA stressed that the comparison does not indicate that it acted on seven times more whistleblowing cases overall. When combined, significant action and lower-tier steps to reduce harm covered 43.0% of closed cases in Q2, close to the 44.3% proportion recorded a year earlier.
Whistleblowing volumes and case outcomes
New whistleblowing reports rose 5.7% year on year to 333 in Q2, carrying a total of 886 allegations. The FCA closed 395 reports in the quarter, up from 350 in the same period a year earlier and 265 in Q1.
Significant action applied to 14% of closed Q2 reports, compared with 2.3% a year earlier and 9% in the first quarter. Lower-tier action to reduce harm was taken in 114 cases, representing 29% of closed reports.
The 56 significant actions recorded in Q2 were close to the 59 logged across the entire year through March 2026 in the FCA’s annual whistleblowing report, underscoring the recent increase in higher-intensity interventions.
Key themes in whistleblowing allegations
Of the 886 allegations reported in Q2, Consumer Duty accounted for 197, making it the largest single category. This was followed by 153 allegations involving leadership and senior managers’ behavior, conduct and integrity. Systems and controls ranked third with 121 allegations. Together, these three categories made up 53.2% of all allegations in the quarter.
Extension of non-financial misconduct rules
The FCA will extend its non-financial misconduct rules to about 37,000 non-bank firms on 1 September, covering entities including investment managers, insurers and companies offering retail trading services such as CFD brokers. From that date, bullying, harassment or violence against colleagues can fall within the conduct rules when linked to a person’s role, and serious, substantiated cases may also need to be included in regulatory references.
UK CFD and retail FX firms already face overlapping FCA workstreams on Consumer Duty, client categorization, financial promotions and incident reporting. FM Intelligence identified 23 regulated CFD brokers exposed to several of these workstreams in March.
