Mark Steward to step down from the FCA

Mark will leave the FCA in Spring 2023.

Since joining the FCA in 2015, Mark has led the delivery of some of the FCA’s most complex, high-profile, and precedent-setting enforcement cases, with many notable successes against major global financial institutions and individuals.

He also led the FCA’s listing authority and oversight of the UK’s publicly traded markets, a role in which he developed the FCA’s data-led approach to market oversight.

Additionally, he has been at the forefront of the FCA’s anti-scam marketing campaign, ‘Scamsmart’.

Nikhil Rathi, chief executive of the FCA, said: “Mark has brought his formidable experience as a regulator and as a litigator to the FCA, delivering significant enforcement cases across a broad spectrum, as well as the FCA’s data-led approach to market oversight.

“That enormous contribution is a result of Mark’s abiding belief in fairness, that markets must be clean if the economy is to thrive and in doing the right thing on behalf of consumers. He has shown that the FCA is willing to take on challenging cases, will use the full extent of our powers and will deliver results that have a real impact for the markets we oversee and for those who rely on them. I am hugely grateful for Mark’s leadership, dedication and expertise and wish him the very best for the future.”

Mark Steward said: “It has been a privilege to serve the FCA throughout many challenges over the last seven years and, as I move on, to leave behind such a strong team for the future.”

Andy Agathangelou, founder of Transparency Task Force, says: “The FCA has been underperforming, opaque and unaccountable for a long time. Mark Steward’s departure is the latest in a series of high-profile resignations, many of them linked to notorious cases of regulatory failure.

“While we think it’s right that he’s going, we don’t believe that the regulator’s shortcomings are tied to the actions or inactions of specific individuals; we blame the culture, and the lack of transparency and accountability.

“We are proposing a modest package of reasonable measures, which can easily be introduced as amendments to the forthcoming Bill, which we believe will finally address these underlying problems and put the FCA on a path toward genuine reform. We call upon the City Minister, Andrew Griffith, to meet with us to discuss how they might be incorporated into the next draft of the Bill.”