Today’s News
The FCA has charged nine former reality TV stars, including several from Love Island, with promoting an unauthorized financial trading scheme on Instagram.
Image Source: Bloomberg
U.K. regulators have charged former reality TV stars, now social media influencers, with promoting an unauthorised financial trading scheme. On Thursday, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) announced charges against nine individuals, many of whom appeared on shows like Love Island and The Only Way is Essex, for their roles in promoting a foreign exchange scheme linked to high-risk derivatives on Instagram between 2018 and 2021.
The group is accused of endorsing an investment scheme run by Emmanuel Nwanze, 30, who allegedly compensated seven of these influencers to promote an Instagram account offering advice on buying and selling contracts for difference (CFDs) to their combined audience of 4.5 million followers.
The FCA has been increasingly vigilant against “finfluencers” using their platforms to promote financial schemes or businesses. This year, the regulator issued guidance on financial promotions on social media to “address emerging consumer harm we’ve seen arising from the use of social media.”
Communicating unauthorised financial promotions is a crime under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, punishable by a fine or up to two years in prison.Emmanuel Nwanze has been charged with carrying out a regulated activity without proper authorisation and unauthorised communications of financial promotions.
Image Source: Evening Standard
Image Source: Evening Standard
Image Source: Evening Standard
Image Source: Wales Online
Image Source: BBC
Image Source: BBC
Former Love Island participants Rebecca Gormley, 26, Biggs Chris, 32, Jamie Clayton, 32, and Eva Zapico, 25, along with The Only Way is Essex stars Lauren Goodger, 37, and Yazmin Oukhellou, 30, Celebrity Big Brother 2016 winner Scott Timlin, 36, and Holly Thompson, 33, have all been charged with issuing unauthorised communications of financial promotions.
In 2019, financial regulators imposed restrictions on the sale and marketing of CFDs, warning that 80 percent of customers lost money when investing in these highly leveraged instruments. The guidelines on social media promotion are part of the consumer duty regulation, introduced last year to ensure higher standards of consumer protection.
The defendants are scheduled to appear before Westminster magistrates’ court on June 13. None of the nine individuals immediately responded to requests for comment.
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