In Regulatory Wrap for the week to December 13, Jennie Clarke and Rob Mason recount the most notable developments over the course of 2024.
In this week’s Regulatory Wrap, we review trending topics over the year, including off-channel communications enforcements, social media scrutiny, finfluencer risks, non-financial misconduct considerations, operational resilience standards, and AI use in finance.
1. There’s been a continuation of off-channel comms enforcements, with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issuing over $600 million in civil penalties throughout 2024 for recordkeeping violations
2. Persisting SEC Marketing Rule enforcements and the increasing use of modern platforms have pointed toward social media as a growing focus, which is reflected in our Communication Capture Trends report with an 87% increase in website and social media data capture
3. Similarly, “finfluencers” have become an emerging risk area, with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) taking action against individuals who have illegally touted financial products and developing further guidelines around the topic
4. The FCA also made considerable moves around non-financial misconduct, clarifying that it will be taken just as seriously as financial misconduct – and U.S. regulators seem to be following suit
5. In light of the Crowdstrike incident, operational resilience has become a vital concern across the industry, with firms reassessing business continuity processes and regulators updating resilience guidelines
6. Interest in AI has ramped up in 2024 as illustrated by the findings of an FCA survey on AI use within financial services, which matches the results of our survey on 2024 communications capture trends that found a 400% increase of firms capturing data from generative AI platforms
This week’s episode is brought to you by our Head of Content, Jennifer Clarke, and Director of Regulatory Intelligence, Rob Mason.
As proved by the array of trending topics over 2024, the regulatory concentration on established risk areas continues to grow, meaning that firms must strengthen their compliance processes to stay ahead of the curb as 2025 approaches.
