Financial email campaign compliance checks

What to take away

Financial campaign compliance checks

The campaign checks span personal data and electronic marketing, financial promotions, and advertising claims. The ICO, FCA and ASA each see a different slice.

London is the setting for this guide. For the local angle, see London matters. Compliance advice is easy to find and easy to get wrong.

Overlap is the practical problem. One email can be a data processing activity, a financial promotion and an advertisement at the same time. Each regulator sees a different slice.

The rules sit in UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, PECR, the FCA Handbook and the CAP Code.

Start from the UK rules that touch an email campaign before choosing a sending platform. The order of checks decides the build.

Recipient records and consent checks

PECR governs electronic marketing to individuals. Consent must be specific, informed and freely given, and the ICO expects records that survive an audit.

The ICO's guidance on direct marketing and regulatory communications draws the line that most financial firms blur. Marketing needs consent or soft opt-in. Regulatory communications do not.

Soft opt-in is narrow. It applies to existing customers, at the point of sale, for similar products, with an opt-out in every message. A wealth manager emailing a prospect about a new fund cannot use it.

Choosing the basis is a documented decision, not a default. The ICO's page on choosing your lawful basis sets out legitimate interests, consent and contract, and the balancing test each requires.

Consent records need the source, the wording shown, the date and the scope. A tick box that covers "financial products" will not cover a pension transfer campaign.

Remember that email compliance is never just a configuration setting. The platform stores consent; it does not create it.

What a consent record should hold

Reviewing financial promotions before sending

A financial promotion is an invitation or inducement to engage in investment activity, communicated in the course of business. Most marketing email from an authorised firm is one.

The Handbook of rules and guidance holds the rules. COBS 4 covers form and content: fair, clear and not misleading, with a balanced view of risks and benefits.

Section 21 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 is the gateway. An unauthorised person cannot communicate a promotion unless an authorised firm approves it or an exemption applies. Email forwarded to a friend can breach this.

Financial promotions must be identifiable as such. A subject line that reads like a personal note, with the promotion buried below, fails the clarity test.

Risk warnings must be prominent, not appended in six point type. Past performance warnings and capital risk statements belong where the reader sees them.

The FCA's consumer protection objective sits behind these rules. It gives the regulator grounds to act where a promotion could mislead a retail client.

Approval is not a one off. If a firm approves an email template, it owns the content every time a sales team edits it.

Where promotions go wrong

Checking financial claims before sending

The ASA administers the advertising codes that apply to financial claims in email. The CAP Code covers non broadcast advertising, which includes marketing email.

Claims must be substantiated before they run. "Best performing fund" needs evidence the firm holds, not a ranking it once saw.

Endorsements and testimonials must be genuine and representative. A client quote about a returns figure needs the same substantiation as the claim itself.

Comparisons must compare like with like. An ISA rate against a savings account rate, without stating terms, invites a ruling.

Prominence matters as much as accuracy. A qualification in a footnote that contradicts the headline claim does not fix it.

The ASA and FCA overlap here. A promotion can breach the CAP Code and the Handbook at once, and the ASA will refer FCA regulated firms to the regulator.

Before release, run a check on claims, endorsements and permission. It catches the wording problems that survive legal review.

Worked example: a wealth manager's campaign

A London wealth manager plans an email to 4,000 opted-in contacts about a new multi asset fund. The team drafts a subject line, a returns table and a client quote.

The compliance officer checks three things. Consent records show the contacts opted in to "investment updates" in the last 18 months. The returns table carries a past performance warning above the figures. The client quote is genuine and the client has given written permission.

The FCA angle is approval. The firm is authorised, so it can communicate its own promotion, and the approver signs off the final HTML rather than the Word draft.

The ASA angle is the headline. "Beat the market" is dropped because the evidence does not support it for this fund. The revised line describes the objective instead.

The ICO angle is the send list. Contacts who opted in to a different product line are excluded, and the suppression file is applied at send time.

Keeping regulatory communications separate from marketing

Regulatory communications are messages a firm must send to meet a legal or contractual duty. They are not marketing, and PECR treats them differently.

Examples include a change to terms, a statement of account, a risk disclosure or a service interruption notice. They can be sent without consent because the law requires them.

The test is purpose, not format. If the same email adds a promotion for a new product, the whole message risks becoming marketing.

Keep the two streams separate. A regulatory email with a promotional banner at the bottom is the classic mistake, and it undermines the exemption for the rest of the message.

Suppression rules still apply. A customer who has objected to marketing can still receive a contractual notice, but not the offer beside it.

Document the classification. When the ICO asks why an email went to a non consented address, the answer must be a specific legal duty, not a preference.

A send workflow for financial email campaigns

Work through the campaign in the order below. Each step produces evidence for the next check.

Pre-send checklist

Check suppression before release as part of the financial email send workflow.

Common questions