FCA Financial Promotions, What Every Marketing Agency Writing for Financial Clients Must Know

The Offence Most Agencies Don't Know They're Committing

If your agency writes marketing copy for a financial services client, an investment firm, a trading platform, a mortgage broker, an insurance company, a fintech, and that copy contains a financial promotion, it must be approved by an FCA-authorised person before it is published.

If it isn't, the person who communicated the promotion has committed a criminal offence under Section 21 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000.

Not the client. You.

What Is a Financial Promotion?

Under FSMA 2000, a financial promotion is any communication that invites or induces someone to engage in investment activity or claim to be a professional investor.

In practice, this means copy that:

• •Mentions returns, yields or performance on investments
• •Promotes trading in securities, funds or derivatives
• •Encourages people to take out a loan, mortgage or insurance product
• •Promotes cryptocurrency or digital asset investment
• •Describes the benefits of a financial product without adequate risk warnings

If your client's campaign does any of the above, it is a financial promotion.

What Approval Do You Need?

A financial promotion must either be:

1. Communicated by an FCA-authorised firm, if your client is directly FCA-regulated (most financial services firms are), they must approve the copy before it is published, or

2. Approved by an FCA-authorised firm, if the promoter is not FCA-regulated, a regulated firm must approve the communication

In either case, this approval must happen before publication. A "we'll sort the compliance later" approach is a criminal liability.

The Crypto Extension

Since October 2023, the FCA has extended financial promotion rules to cover cryptoassets. Any promotion of crypto trading, crypto investment products or NFTs must now comply with FCA financial promotion rules, including specific risk warnings.

The required risk warning for crypto promotions reads: "Don't invest unless you're prepared to lose all the money you invest. This is a high-risk investment and you are unlikely to be protected if something goes wrong. Take 2 minutes to learn more."

If your agency produces social media content, landing pages or email campaigns for a crypto brand without this warning, the brand is in violation, and your agency produced the non-compliant material.

What the FCA Actually Does to Non-Compliant Promotions

The FCA has become significantly more aggressive in enforcement since 2023:

• •Issued 10,000 alerts about unauthorised financial promotions in 2023 alone
• •Required Google and Meta to block unauthorised financial ads
• •Pursued criminal prosecutions against individuals communicating unapproved promotions
• •Required major platforms to delist non-compliant financial promoters

The regulator is watching social media, search ads, email and landing pages. It is not waiting for complaints.

How to Protect Your Agency

1. Identify Every Financial Client

Audit your client list. Which clients operate in financial services? Which campaigns touch investment, lending, insurance or crypto?

2. Require Client Sign-Off on All Financial Promotions

Build a process where every piece of copy containing financial claims is approved in writing by your client's compliance team before publication. Get this approval in writing and keep the record.

3. Scan Every Financial Promotion Before Submission

Red Flag AI Pro includes FCA financial promotion scanning as part of the Sentinel plan. Every scan checks for financial promotion language, missing risk warnings and claims that require FCA approval, before the copy leaves your agency.

4. Update Your Agency Contracts

Include a clause in your client agreements that:

• •Requires the client to confirm they have the necessary FCA authorisations
• •Places responsibility on the client to approve all financial promotions
• •Indemnifies your agency against claims arising from the client's failure to obtain approval

The Bottom Line

Writing an unapproved financial promotion is a criminal offence. It doesn't matter that you are a marketing agency and not a financial firm. The person who communicates the promotion bears criminal liability.

The protection is a documented approval process, and it starts with identifying which of your copy contains financial promotions before it leaves your desk.