Supporting consumers and businesses

We’ve been continuing our ‘Don’t Be Fooled’ campaign work to raise awareness of young people being targeted by criminals to become money mules. These are people who receive stolen money into their bank account and transfer it into another account, often in return for money or an expensive gift. Allowing a bank account to be used in this way is a crime and can result in a criminal record and the account being closed. Giles Mason, our Director of Campaigns appeared on BBC Morning Live (35 minutes in) to highlight the impact of money mules. This segment shares the signs that someone might be becoming a money mule and the action you should take. For more information about this work, visit our website.

Delivering a high growth economy

This month we published our first Monthly Economic Insight for 2024. In it, our Economic Insight and Research team provided a look ahead of key economic and policy developments. This included how much growth we should expect to see, interest rate moves, cost of living pressures, mortgage market activity as well as predictions on when we’ll see a general election.

Preventing economic crime

The Take Five to Stop Fraud campaign have teamed up with UK-wide learning disability charity Mencap to produce an easy read guide and explainer video to help people with learning disabilities stay safe from scams. The guide focuses on romance scams and impersonation fraud as people with a learning disability may have less capacity to spot the subtle warning signs of these crimes. The guide has been reviewed by a panel of people with learning disabilities for their feedback and is for use and distribution across the financial services industry. Visit the Take Five website to learn more.

Transitioning to net zero

In January, we've been developing our positions for Conservative and Labour manifestos ahead of the upcoming UK General Election, as well as for the Spring Budget. This work draws on our recent briefing paper, Mobilising Capital for the Net Zero Transition, as well as our Net Zero Homes report. Our upcoming report on the SME Net Zero transition, which is in its final drafting stages, will also feed into our advocacy work this year.

In regulatory engagement, we provided industry feedback to the Transition Plan Taskforce’s guidance for banking sector net zero transition plans and are responding to the Financial Conduct Authority’s anti-greenwashing guidance and Basel Committee’s consultation on climate-related financial risk disclosure – seeking alignment with existing reporting expectations. We are also preparing a briefing on the sector’s expectations for future transition planning regulations.

Enabling digital innovation

With a surge in AI regulation predicted in 2024, we’ll be working with members to develop our thinking on this topic. Our latest blog post shares more detail on how we’ll be collaborating with public sector stakeholders and that momentum generated by recent AI developments delivers value for customers and businesses in a fair, ethical, and transparent way.

Upcoming events   

This month we launch our first Fraud Technical Briefing, an in-person event focusing on the latest strategies in fraud and financial crime prevention as well as latest solutions to threats in the sector.  

In March we’ll be hosting both our Annual Mortgage Lunch and the Mergers & Acquisitions Conference.  

Information of all networking events, conferences, and training opportunities can be found on our here or register your interest in events not yet live via the online form.