The UK’s financial regulator is launching stronger rules for misleading adverts that encourage consumers to invest in high-risk products.

The rules will force companies marketing some types of high-risk investments to improve checks to ensure consumers and their investment are well matched.

The FCA said that under the new rules, firms approving and issuing marketing will need to have “appropriate expertise”.

The move comes days after the regulator confirmed plans for a new Consumer Duty covering all regulated firms. According to the FCA, the new Duty will set higher and clearer standards of consumer protection and require firms to put their customers’ needs first.

The new advertisement rules don’t currently apply to cryptoasset promotion as the government has not yet confirmed in legislation how this kind of marketing will be brought into the FCA’s remit. But the authority said that in future, the rules for cryptoasset advertisements will likely follow the same approach.

“We want people to be able to invest with confidence, understand the risks involved, and get the investments that are right for them which reflect their appetite for risk,” said Sarah Pritchard, the FCA’s executive director, markets. “Our new simplified risk warnings are designed to help consumers better understand the risks, albeit firms have a significant role to play too.”

Pritchard said that where the regulator sees products being marketed that don’t contain the right risk warnings or are unclear, it will act.

The new rules will also require firms to use clearer and more prominent risk warnings and certain incentives to invest, such as ‘refer a friend bonuses’, are now banned.

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