After announcing a temporary ban in November 2019, the FCA has now moved to ban marketing to retail investors of mini bonds permanently.

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What are mini bonds?

Mini bonds are like regular bonds, only much more dangerous. They are illiquid assets that are marketed to retail investors, sometimes with the intent of confusing the buyer.

Sheldon Mills, Interim Executive Director of Strategy and Competition at the FCA said:

‘We know that investing in these types of products can lead to unexpected and significant losses for investors. We have already taken a wide range of action in order to protect consumers and by making the ban permanent we aim to prevent people investing in complex, high risk products which are often designed to be hard to understand.’

Compliance and legal officers at financial services firms must now only market mini bonds to sophisticated or high net worth investors with prominent risk warnings and disclosures regarding third parties.

The ban also encompasses other high risk, illiquid, instruments that come under a similar umbrella.

The full FCA press release can be found here.

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