Suspicious activity reports by staff at financial firms exceeded one million during 2019-20

FCA data

Suspicious activity reports submitted by staff at financial firms, have been steadily increasing in number year-on-year since 2017, according to data from the FCA.

The regulator's report Financial Crime: analysis of firms' 2017-2020 has revealed that staff have increasingly been reporting suspicious occurrences involving illicit financial activity to internal staff and to external regulators. Reports have risen from 887,500 in the 2017-18, to 934,136 in 2018-19, and again to 1,028,260 in the year 2019-20, reflecting a 16% increase overall during the period 2017-18 - 2019-20. The report, which compared crime data from over 2,300 firms over the course of the three years, also revealed that the retail banking sector accounted for 78% of staff conce...