Following the Rules

• FCA’s Charlotte Clark on the firms ‘over-interpreting’ Consumer Duty, how the watchdog plans to help City firms navigate compliance, and its role in supporting firms through rapid AI adoption

  Today’s guest discusses how some wholesale financial institutions may be unnecessarily “gold-plating” their efforts to comply with the Financial Conduct Authority’s Consumer Duty regime. She details how the regulator plans to both clarify and simplify its expectations of all firms subject to the far-reaching ruleset. She also discusses the FCA’s plans to help firms, both large and small, navigate the rapid deployment of AI tools across financial services and explains why inclusive product design is important for firms to get right. Charlotte Clark’s career includes stints overseeing policy on various aspects of pensions regulation at HM Treasury and the Department for Work and Pensions, as well as four years as director of regulation at lobby group the Association of British Insurers. She joined the FCA in November 2024 to lead its work on consumer strategy, and broader policy affecting firms across all sectors as the watchdog’s director for cross-cutting policy and strategy. --- Short on time? You can read the episode highlights on the FT's Banking, Risk and Regulation

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• Special episode: How to track non-financial misconduct within your business with Smarsh's Shaun Hurst and former Standard Chartered surveillance chief Emily Wright

  Today’s episode is a special one produced in association with Smarsh, a technology firm providing global financial institutions with the tools to capture, store, and monitor their communications. It also marks the launch of a new Following the Rules series providing practical, actionable guidance to help listeners and the financial services firms they work for navigate legal, regulatory, technological, and cultural change. We’re kicking off with a deep dive into non-financial misconduct - a growing area of regulatory focus. The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority now considers toxic workplace behaviour, such as bullying, harassment, and discrimination, to be conduct that could impact a person’s fitness for regulated roles and signal broader cultural failings. From 2026, the FCA will begin supervising serious cases more closely. So how can firms of all sizes effectively detect, respond to, and minimise non-financial misconduct within their businesses? How do you define what counts as serious bullying or discrimination? And how can organisations ensure change is meaningful, not just a box-ticking exercise? Today’s guests are experts in the subject. Shaun Hurst is Smarsh’s Principal Regulatory Advisor, with a background in managing technology for Citigroup’s security and investigations teams in Asia-Pacific and Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Emily Wright is a compliance and conduct consultant with over 20 years' experience, including overseeing compliance and surveillance programmes at financial services giants Standard Chartered, JP Morgan, and ICAP.

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• Mark Watson, SVB’s former management governance head, on the crisis policymakers, regulators, and financial institutions are sleepwalking into and how to avoid it

  Today’s guest outlines where governments and financial regulators are going wrong in their supervision of the sector. He details where he sees potentially systemic risks mounting and he explains what banks, financial institutions and their supervisors can do now to prevent a significant blow-up from occurring on their watch. Mark Watson is a governance and risk expert whose three-decade career includes stints advising financial institutions on governance and non-financial risks on behalf of consulting giants McKinsey and EY. In 2022, he joined Silicon Valley Bank, to lead a redesign of its management decision-making as its head of management governance. Since the bank’s collapse in 2023, he has been advising financial institutions on corporate governance, risk management, and financial services regulation as the founder of Portcullis Consulting.

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• FMSB CEO Myles McGuinness on his plans to help the City tackle non-financial misconduct, and bolstering the standard setters' future in an increasingly polarised world

  Today’s guest explains why global standards for financial conduct could help counter the risk of rising regulatory fragmentation - providing, as he puts it, “the glue to hold diverging rule books together.” He outlines how a robust governance framework could help financial institutions better tackle toxic workplace behaviour. He explains why he believes a central repository for authenticated data may be key to fighting AI-generated fakes. And he opens up about the Financial Markets Standards Board’s ambitions to expand its global footprint and its membership. Myles McGuinness’s 30-year career includes two decades - and several senior roles - at UK lender NatWest Markets. He spent two years establishing the bank’s capital markets business in Europe as its EMEA head of Financing and Risk Solutions before leaving in 2021 to lead the FMSB as its CEO.

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• Jillien Flores of the Managed Funds Association on how rulemakers can best rethink overly-onerous regulations for alternative asset managers, and the "misguided" policies they should avoid

  Today’s guest calls on regulators and policymakers to stop seeking to regulate alternative asset managers like they’re banks. She details how policymakers can best rethink the regulatory framework for the non-bank sector to benefit not only alternative asset managers but also the financial sector more broadly. And she explains how a push to harmonise the rulebooks between competing financial hub could also help with a broader push to bolster jurisdictional competitiveness. Jillien Flores is a regulatory affairs specialist whose 17-year career includes seven years at government relations firm Porterfield, Lowenthal, Fettig & Sears where she helped to shape several of the US’s landmark regulatory response to the 2008 financial crisis, including the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform  She spent six years advocating on regulatory issues for asset manager Vanguard before leaving in 2021 to join the Managed Funds Association, a trade group representing the world's biggest hedge funds, where she now serves as Chief Advocacy Officer.   --- Short on time? You can read the episode highlights on the FT's Banking, Risk and Regulation

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