Coronavirus to mean both bust and boom for unregulated investments

March 31, 2020March 28, 2020 ~ Brev ~ 12 Comments

Last year I counted over £1 billion in losses from unregulated investments marketed in the UK that went bust in 2019.

And the scary thing is that this was without a global financial crash.

Slow news month?

March 16, 2020March 16, 2020 ~ Brev ~ 10 Comments

Regular readers (hi Mum) will have noticed a slowdown in Bond Review's output lately.

This is due to a combination of less free time on my part, due to changed family circumstances, and a lack of developments in the unregulated investment sector that were interesting enough to be worth writing up.

FSCS employs magic-based logic to compensate 159 LCF bondholders

January 20, 2020January 20, 2020 ~ Brev ~ 5 Comments

Last week I reported on the FSCS' decision to compensate only 159 London Capital & Finance bondholders.

The decision to compensate only those who transferred stocks & shares ISAs to LCF, and not those who transferred cash ISAs, over a technical interpretation of the compensation handbook, has been a particular point of controversy.

FSCS announces compensation for only 159 London Capital and Finance bondholders

January 14, 2020January 13, 2020 ~ Brev ~ 20 Comments

The hopes of most victims of FCA-authorised Ponzi scheme London Capital & Finance were dashed last week when the FSCS announced it would not compensate them on the basis of having received misleading advice.

It said that investors had merely been given incorrect information, which doesn't generate a liability that is covered by the FSCS' "protected business" rules.

That the FSCS has eventually taken this decision is disappointing for investors but ultimately not surprising. London Capital Finance was not authorised to give advice to retail investors, employed no qualified financial advisers, and its call centre staff were generally trained to avoid crossing the line from information to advice - as in any other non-advisory finance company. (Although some went off-piste and crossed the line into the "I'd tell my own mother to invest in this" school of advice.)

FCA chief Andrew Bailey kicked upstairs

December 23, 2019December 21, 2019 ~ Brev ~ 4 Comments

With the triumphant swagger of a county athlete who sees that he's the 1-10 favourite for tomorrow's race, drinks five pints of scrumpy in the pub the night before, and eventually staggers over the line an inch ahead of a 12-year-old farmer's son before vomiting into the trophy, FCA CEO Andrew Bailey has shrugged off the ongoing scandal of the FCA's failure to deal with unregulated investments and secured the appointment of Governor of the Bank of England.

Bailey must have been sweating a little as a succession of headlines about financial scandals old and new (minibonds, mortgage prisoners, vulture "restructuring" divisions) - with the FCA's conscious inaction as a constant theme - rolled through the presses as the Government deliberated its decision. But in the end, Bailey's "safe pair of hands" reputation won the day.

Bond Review is 2 today

December 15, 2019 ~ Brev ~ 2 Comments

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Today marks the second anniversary of Bond Review’s first ever article, our review of the now sadly notorious London Capital & Finance.

So far Bond Review’s two years have seen:

90 reviews of high-risk unregulated investments promoted to the public
190 further articles bringing you news on the progress of these investments (or lack of it)
8 attempts at legal intimidation
Plus a further 2 attempts to remove Bond Review from Google search results by making defamation claims to Google (without making any attempt to contact us directly)
0 court proceedings started
1 fake DMCA takedown
2 offers to buy the domain (and all its content) for an aggregate of £10,000 (to host a site reviewing James Bond films? sure guys)

FCA acknowledges that minibond marketing ban may result in shortage of new money to pay off existing investors with

December 12, 2019December 10, 2019 ~ Brev ~ 3 Comments

Following its announcement of a 12-month marketing ban on minibonds being marketed to the general public, the FCA has confirmed that it is well aware that this could lead to existing minibond investors losing their money.

In a 46-page document outlining the ban, more specifically outlining how the ban complies with UK anti-discrimination law, the FCA stated:

There may be indirect positive or negative effects on people with protected characteristics as they may be (i) existing investors in speculative illiquid securitiesor (ii) prospective investors. The former may experience harm if market disruption from our measures exacerbates poor performance of existing products and the financial position of issuers that are already struggling, especially if an issuer isreliant on being able to raise further capital from retail investors with new issues and this becomes more difficult.