FCA: Culture and non-financial misconduct survey – findings

FCA has published the results of a survey of over 1,000 investment banks, brokers and wholesale insurance firms.  The number of allegations reported increased between 2021 and 2023, and in those years, bullying and harassment (26%) and discrimination (23%) were the most recorded concerns. However, the large “other” group of concerns (41%) indicates how difficult it can be to categorise issues of personal misconduct.  Other findings include the following: disciplinary or “other” actions were taken in 43% of cases; some types of reported non-financial misconduct, such as violence and intimidation, more often resulted in disciplinary actions compared to other types, such as discrimination; the total number of confidentiality and settlement agreements signed by complainants fell over the years surveyed according to the data from the wholesale banks sector, but data from other sectors showed no clear trend; discrimination, with 23% of cases on average across all sectors, had the highest percentage of incidents resulting in the complainant signing either a settlement or confidentiality agreement; in all sectors, action taken following non-financial misconduct rarely resulted in remuneration adjustment - when remuneration was adjusted it was mostly against unvested variable pay; some relevant policies, like whistleblowing and disciplinary policies, were not in place at all firms surveyed.