On 7 November 2024, we published an article about how the FCA interviewed twenty finfluencers under caution. That was at the end of October 2024.
Well, it seems that the FCA has taken this crackdown global. Nine regulators from across the globe, led by the FCA, have joined forces to protect social media users from illegal financial promotions by rogue finfluencers.
These regulators – from Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Italy, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom – took part in the week of action, which began on 2 June 2025.
In the UK, the FCA has:
- made 3 arrests with the support of the City of London Police (the National Lead Force for fraud)
- authorised criminal proceedings against 3 individuals
- invited 4 finfluencers for interview
- sent 7 cease and desist letters
- issued 50 warning alerts
The warning alerts will result in over 650 takedown requests on social media platforms and more than 50 websites operated by unauthorised finfluencers. As far as the FCA and other regulators are concerned, finfluencers are promoting products and services, and this falls under financial promotions.
In case you have forgotten, ‘finfluencers’, or financial influencers, are individuals who offer advice and information on various financial topics, including saving, investing, cryptocurrency, and sometimes even ways to get rich quickly. They tend to be social media, TV, music or sports personalities who use their platforms to promote financial products and share insights and advice with their followers. They usually offer advice in quick, easy-to-digest videos, which can be engaging but may not provide all the information an individual needs to make a fully informed decision.
Over the last few years, finfluencers have become more prominent on social media. It should be clearly stated that these individuals are not authorised by the FCA, or other regulators, and are likely to be unqualified to give financial advice to the younger and often very impressionable age groups who follow them.
As previously stated in our 7 November 2024 article, this is not a new phenomenon: in the past, the FCA, and its predecessor the Financial Services Authority (FSA), have been concerned with financial journalists giving ‘advice’ to their readers and have acted to manage this activity.
Social media and finfluencers are part of the ongoing mission of the FCA to ensure authorised and qualified individuals give advice to consumers. It serves as a reminder to firms to ensure that they control their financial promotions and, if considering using a ‘finfluencer’, wisely review their content before they go live so they do not do anything that could mislead or harm customers.
Is this global cooperation the end of finfluencers? Will we see a rise in more ‘paid-for partnerships’ between firms and influencers? Will we see firms being punished as well as the finfluencers they employ? Or are the rewards too big to ignore?
We will be watching this space closely.
