ShareSoc News

Are Firms Finally Speaking Our Language? The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) on 13 March 2026 released a significant update on one of the four key pillars of the Consumer Duty: Consumer Understanding.  For years, retail investors and consumers have waded through impenetrable legalese and dense terms & conditions. Under the Consumer Duty, the FCA expects firms to move beyond mere compliance and ensure customers genuinely understand the products they are buying.   This latest report from the regulator highlights where the industry is getting it right - and where it is still failing us.  The Headline Findings: What Investors Need to Know  The FCA’s review focuses on how firms ...

Every year, International Women's Day gives us a moment to stop and ask whether we're making progress or just talking about it. This year's theme of rights, justice, and action feels particularly pointed. And for me, it keeps coming back to one thing: financial independence. Fewer than 30% of retail investors in the UK are women. And yet when women do invest, the evidence points in one direction: they tend to think longer term and make more considered decisions. So the gap ...

Sadly, BrewDog is a cautionary tale. Early-stage investors take huge amounts of risk. If things go well, they often get diluted or subordinated by large funding rounds; if things go badly, they get wiped out.    In this case, it appears management was not sufficiently focused on the plight of the company’s early-stage investors and fell prey to the siren call of private equity. In 2017 the company was expanding rapidly and needed significant new funding – far more than could be raised from existing individual shareholders or via the ...

Our Chair, Heather Benjamin, has had a busy start to 2026, continuing to raise ShareSoc’s profile.  The London Stock Exchange marked the introduction of the new Public Offers and Admissions to Trading Regulations (POATR) regime and the launch of Access Bonds. For the first time in a generation, retail investors can access UK corporate bonds on the same disclosure terms as institutions, and in denominations that make sense.  The Power of Retail event hosted by RetailBook and Peel Hunt brought together policymakers, regulators, market infrastructure and practitioners to talk candidly about how ...

The UK government is moving toward a digitised stock market. This means the old system of paper share certificates is finally being retired in favour of a modern, digital-only system.  And it's about time! What is Changing? Currently, many investors hold shares through nominee companies associated with their platform or broker (e.g. Hargreaves Lansdown, interactive investor, AJ Bell). In the eyes of the law, the nominee is the legal owner, while the investor is the Underlying Beneficial Owner (UBO).   This indirect holding works well as a means of ...