"Balancing the customer preference for slick, straight-through onboarding processes against the need for organisations to protect against criminal activity remains a difficult task. State-supported digital identity initiatives, such as the European’s Union’s EUDI Wallets, and the eIDAS 2.0 regulation which will underpin EUDI, may hold the answer - although previous attempts to achieve similar goals have been marred by a lack of uptake and differing opinions between national governments as to to the most effective means to implement and maintain such a system.”  

“From WeChat to Alipay, super apps are the norm in the East and this trend is now moving towards the West with the rise of all-in-one apps resulting in billions of people carrying out a large part of their mobile activities from a single app, from messaging friends, ordering products and services, ridesharing and banking. Although they offer convenience to consumers, they’re also convenient for fraudsters. With a platform to collude on and share information through, criminals can target super apps for account takeovers, to set up fake accounts using stolen personal details, abuse referral systems, and commit payment fraud."

“With no laws governing the voluntary carbon offsets market, critics call it the ‘wild west of carbon markets’ with poor transparency credentials. The offset model rests on the idea that carbon emitted in one part of the world will be reabsorbed in another. This has led to land grabs in areas where indigenous rights are not well recognised. It also disadvantages for poorer countries to account for their own emissions. Offsetting incentivises the commodification of nature and allows powerful corporations to take over the lands of vulnerable communities, risking human rights abuses. When credits are sold for projects that would have happened anyways, there is a problem.”

"Oxfam has calculated that the fossil fuel industry alone could require 500 million hectares of land to offset its emissions by 2050 to reach net zero. With a shortage of land and increase in greenhouse emissions, the risk of circular scams to carbon offsetting in an already unregulated industry is likely to increase.”   

“This year British Gas has been accused of misleading tens of thousands of customers by selling them “green energy” that may have no environmental benefit. The energy giant claimed to reduce its carbon footprint by using carbon credits which pump money into environmental work abroad, but an investigation found that almost half the carbon offsets held by British Gas owner Centrica are ‘junk credits’ that were issued under a discredited scheme, with nearly half of them having been banned from trading in the EU from 2013.”

"This example underlines that the sale of carbon credits is an unregulated activity. The FCA has rightly warned about scams in this space, and with many firms providing little to no transparency into their projects, it is easy for companies to ‘greenwash’ their credentials and activities behind the smokescreen of ‘net zero’. Regulators have yet to define a supervisory and enforcement framework for ESG initiatives that ensures consumers and the environment are protected. This may well be coming in 2023.”
 

“Effective July 31, 2023, Consumer Duty will apply to new products and services, and existing products and services that remain on sale or open for renewal.”

"The FCA has termed the Consumer Duty as a ‘“paradigm shift” with the FCA wanting to see firms deliver a higher standard of customer care and protection, and to go further to equip consumers to make effective decisions in their interests. The final rules were published on July 27 2022 and firms are required to implement these rules for existing and new products and services by July 31 2023. Correct implementation requires a cultural shift in most organisations, requiring the right governance, systems, and controls to be embedded.”

"Under the new Duty firms will be required to review and potentially rewrite their product governance policies to ensure customer outcomes are considered across the product lifecycle, from inception to design, pricing, delivery, post-sales, and termination. The FCA expects firms to collect data and metrics that evidence fair outcomes for customers across this lifecycle. This requires firms to build out robust data analytics and data warehousing for reporting these metrics to satisfy themselves that the data they are collecting will enable them to identify and prevent potential problems before they occur.”

"Although the Consumer Duty gives rise to a new consumer principle i.e. a firm must act to deliver good outcomes for retail customers, it remains to be seen how compliance will be enforced. Rigorous enforcement will be important to ensure this becomes more than simply a tick-box requirement for firms.”