Meta vows to tighten financial ad rules

The head of the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority said Facebook owner Meta Platforms Inc. has promised to only allow registered firms to advertise financial promotions on its sites, and called on Twitter Inc. to clarify its own position.

Nikhil Rathi, chief executive officer of the FCA, said Alphabet Inc.’s Google had already voluntarily agreed to the same approach.

“Following our engagement, Meta have now promised to do the same this year,” he said. “We look forward to seeing them deliver and await clearer plans from Twitter and others.”

The regulator is seeking to be more proactive under Rathi’s watch, even where it lacks specific powers to deliver change. That involves applying public pressure on some of the world’s biggest corporations.

The FCA has issued several warnings about scams amid a rise in consumers falling victim, particularly through online advertisements.

Sam Woods, chief executive officer of the Prudential Regulation Authority, floated possible — if unlikely — changes to the regulatory regime for banks.

Woods suggested combining the various post-crisis capital requirements for lenders into a single buffer, which he said would be “radically different” and simpler than the current regime.

He also suggested annual stress tests could be replaced with more regular scrutiny of firms’ resilience to catastrophic scenarios.

“I wonder if another world is possible — one where stress tests are just as robust, but simpler to run, more frequent, and cover a much wider range of economic outcomes,” Woods said. “In the European insurance framework firms run literally thousands of scenarios to test their resilience — are we so sure that one or two every year or so is the best answer for banking?”