Fintech · Industry brief

United Kingdom: The FCA published findings on firms' approaches to monitoring Consumer Duty outcomes (27 July), and released its second Enforcement Watch newsletter focusing on Consumer Duty supervision and enforcement (7 July). HM Treasury published a consultation paper on reforming ring-fencing requirements for banks and modernising payment services regulation (both 15 July). The PRA published a policy statement on post-implementation amendments to UK Solvency II reporting and disclosure (29 July) and consultation papers on insurance friendly society amalgamations (22 July) and a bespoke captive insurance regime (14 July). United States: The SEC announced settled enforcement actions including charges against an investment adviser for prohibited affiliate transactions and leverage violations, resulting in a $400,000 penalty (27 July), and charges against a former registered adviser representative for failing to disclose conflicts of interest in real estate securities, with a $125,000 penalty (13 July). The CFTC settled manipulation charges against a former Congressman for event contract trading based on misrepresentations about his State of the Union attendance, requiring disgorgement of approximately $18,000, an equal civil penalty, and a three-year trading ban (31 July).

Sen. Elizabeth Warren is urging the OCC to revoke United Texas Bank's national banking charter, which was approved in May and completed in June despite the bank operating under a 2024 consent order from the Texas Department of Banking and Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas for significant anti-money laundering and risk management deficiencies. Warren argues the conversion violates the Dodd-Frank Act Section 612, which prohibits charter conversions during formal enforcement actions, and notes that the OCC's subsequent consent order omitted corporate governance requirements from the original enforcement action. Fed Gov. Michael Barr also dissented from the Fed's nonobjection in May, citing the bank's serious AML and terrorist financing compliance issues. Warren has requested the OCC and Federal Reserve detail their legal and supervisory basis for the approval by August 20, criticizing the decision as setting a precedent allowing banks to convert to the "lowest common denominator regulator" rather than address compliance failures.