FCA's social media move 'leaves 40 characters for product promotion'

The Financial Conduct Authority's (FCA) newly published guidance on social media promotion leaves firms with 40 characters to promote their products on Twitter, warned a consultancy as it criticised the regulator for "not going far enough" in telling firms what they are allowed to do.

Regulatory consultancy Bovill, which recently appointed a former Financial Services Authority (FSA) manager as a consultant in its wealth management team, accused the regulator of failing in parts of its new social media guidance, out on Wednesday, particularly its rules around character-limited promotions, such as Twitter. The FCA proposed to add the hashtag #ad to flag up whether a post is effectively an investment promotion on Twitter but Bovill pointed out the tweet will still need to include the appropriate risk warnings. The consultancy said: "For a tweet to be fully compliant w...