As reported in the Financial Times, the regulator is coming under increasing pressure from banks over an inexorable rise in penalties after recent investigations into alleged rigging of FX markets and the Libor scandal.
The banks accounted for the vast majority of the fines, which dwarfed the £425m levied in the whole of 2013-2014 financial year.
Speaking at the FCA’s enforcement conference last week, Georgina Philippou, director of strategy and delivery in enforcement and financial crime, was quoted as saying the regulator will review the policy in 2015 to consider whether the current rules are leading to behavioural changes in firms.
Last month the FCA proposed giving advisers a 50% reduction in the levy to fund the Government’s guidance guarantee service.