Financial promotions and adverts

Financial promotions or adverts are likely to be the most regular contact consumers have with firms that offer financial services and products. Financial promotions can take the form of a website, Facebook post, tweet, etc. They can form a significant part of a consumer’s product knowledge, and can influence a consumer’s decision making when choosing a product. It’s therefore very important that these promotions are fair, clear and not misleading, so that consumers can make informed decisions.

We regulate advertising for most financial services. This includes products such as:

• loans (eg payday loans, guarantor loans, car finance)
• investments (eg bonds, stocks & shares, contracts for differences, collective investment schemes)
• cash savings and bank accounts
• insurance (eg home, motor, travel)
• pensions
• mortgages
• life assurance
• payment services and e-money (excluding cash-to-cash ‘bureaux de change’ activities)
• claims management (including personal injury, housing disrepair, specified benefit, criminal injury and employment related)
• qualifying cryptoassets

All financial promotions must be clear, fair and not misleading regardless of the media type. For more information regarding our media-neutral stance, please refer to our Social Media Guidance. In addition, financial promotions may need to comply with specific FCA rules, depending on the product type they are promoting.

Links to relevant Handbook rules for firms

The links below will take you directly to the financial promotions rules within the FCA Handbook that relate to these high-level product areas.

• Consumer credit: CONC - Consumer Credit; CONC - Debt
• Retail investments: COBS
• General insurance: ICOBS
• Mortgages: MCOB
• Banking: BCOBS
• Claims management: CMCOB

Firms should also review The Perimeter Guidance Manual which sets out the legal definition of a financial promotion, and what would be considered merely a communication to reference the firm’s brand (image advertising).

Report a misleading financial promotion

If you think another firm has issued a non-compliant promotion, please tell us by completing our online reporting form. The form will ask you for details about the promotion, and provides options to contact us by post or email if you prefer.

When we find that a financial promotion is misleading we can:

• ask the firm to change or remove the advert
• ask the firm to write to customers who may have been misled
• warn or fine the firm
• ban the promotion

Who else to contact

If you want to complain about the more general parts of an advert or promotion, such as its taste and decency, or in relation to its social responsibility, please contact the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).