The FCA moves to ban a father and son over client money — and it's not final

What did the FCA actually decide?

That Alec Finch and Robert Finch, a father and son, should be banned from working in financial services. The firm at the centre of it is AFL Insurance Brokers Limited — an insurance broker, not an investment platform, so no trading account or portfolio is involved anywhere in this story.

The money in question was insurance client money: premiums and claims cash held on behalf of customers. AFL was later renamed Ambon Brokers Limited and, per Money Marketing, is no longer authorised by the FCA.

What the regulator says happened, in its own summary: the two misused client money to fund AFL's business expenses. Then, when they wanted to sell the firm, they made the business look healthier than it was by creating false financial records — misleading the buyer, and their own accountants and auditors. The misuse was concealed, the firm's financial position was overstated, and AFL was left with what the FCA calls "a significant client money deficit".

How significant? The FCA doesn't say. There is no figure in the press release and none in any of the trade coverage I read.

The regulator isn't working from its own investigation alone here, which matters for how much weight this carries. Its decision follows a High Court judgment of 27 September 2023; the buyer of AFL had started those proceedings back in August 2020. Therese Chambers, the FCA's joint executive director of enforcement and market oversight, put it this way: "The High Court found that the Finches were the driving force behind every part of this serious fraud. They painted a false picture of a successful business and used client money for their own benefit – which they knew was wrong."

Then comes the part most headlines flattened.

So are they banned?

No. Not yet, and possibly not ever.

Both men have referred their Decision Notices to the Upper Tribunal — the independent tribunal that hears challenges to FCA enforcement decisions, where each will put his own case. Until it rules, the FCA's own words govern: "Any findings in the Decision Notices are therefore provisional and reflect the FCA's belief as to what occurred and how it considers their behaviour should be characterised."

Provisional. The FCA's belief. That is the regulator writing its own caveat, and it belongs in the second paragraph of a news story, not in a footnote under "banned".

Were they fined?

No, and this is the odd bit.

The FCA says it would have imposed £121,200 on Alec Finch and £169,800 on Robert Finch. It didn't, because both produced verifiable evidence that a penalty of any amount would cause them serious financial hardship. So those aren't fines. Nothing has been collected from anyone.

Hardship isn't a loophole somebody found — it's built into how the FCA calculates penalties, and it turns up in enforcement notices often enough that you stop noticing it. But put the two facts next to each other, a serious-fraud finding and a bill of zero, and you get a fairly honest picture of what enforcement is for. It takes people out of the industry. It does not make anyone whole.

An insurance broker, though. Why is this on a site about brokers and deals?

Because "client money" is the single most load-bearing phrase in retail finance, most people have never had it explained, and this is a documented case of the rule failing.

Here's the mechanism. When a regulated firm holds cash for you, that cash is supposed to sit in a separate client bank account, held on trust, apart from the firm's own money. The rulebook is the Client Assets Sourcebook — CASS — and the FCA states its purpose in a single line: it exists "to keep client money and assets safe if firms fail and exit the market."

Different chapters cover different businesses. CASS 5 applies to insurance intermediaries like AFL. CASS 7 applies to investment firms — that's the chapter your stockbroker or trading app lives under. The principle underneath is identical, and the guidance at CASS 5.5.2G spells out why it exists:

"Segregation, in the event of a firm's failure, is important for the effective operation of the trust that is created to protect client money. The aim is to clarify the difference between client money and general creditors' entitlements in the event of the failure of the firm."

Read that second sentence twice, because it's the whole game. If your money is properly segregated, then when the firm collapses you are not queuing behind its landlord, its lenders and its unpaid suppliers — the cash was never the firm's to hand out. If it isn't segregated, you are just another creditor with a claim. That is the difference between waiting a few months and losing the lot.

It isn't a rule nobody watches, either. The FCA sorts firms by how much client money they hold — under £1m is small, £1m to £1bn is medium, over £1bn is large — and medium and large firms file a client money and asset return every single month. Which tells you something about why "used client money to fund business expenses" is a finding a regulator reaches for a lifetime ban over rather than a fine and a stern letter.

When did you last check that your own provider is actually authorised to hold your cash?

If my broker did this to me, would I get my money back?

Partly, maybe, and never automatically. Two things exist for a UK retail customer, and they do different jobs.

The Financial Ombudsman Service. Free to use, and it's where you go when a regulated firm has treated you badly and its own complaints process hasn't fixed it. The award limits rose on 1 April 2026 to £455,000 for acts or omissions on or after 1 April 2019, and £205,000 for anything before that date; they're uprated each year in line with CPI inflation. The catch is obvious once you say it out loud: an ombudsman award is only worth something if the firm still exists to pay it.

The FSCS. The Financial Services Compensation Scheme is the one that pays when the firm itself has gone under. For investments the limit is £85,000 per eligible person, per firm, where the firm failed on or after 1 April 2019. It covers a shortfall in the money or assets the firm was holding for you, and it covers bad advice. It does not cover markets going the wrong way — in the FSCS's own words, "We can't accept any claims that are for poor investment performance."

Notice the shape of that. Neither route is a regulator writing you a cheque because a director was dishonest. FSCS needs a failed, authorised firm. FOS needs a live one. And £85,000 stops feeling generous the moment you picture fifteen years of ISA contributions in one place.

Which leaves two dull habits that are worth more than any of it. Check the firm on the FCA register under the exact legal name and reference number it gives you, not the brand on the app icon. And treat "funds held in segregated accounts" as a claim to verify rather than a reassurance to accept — under CASS it means something specific and monitored; from an entity the FCA has never authorised it means nothing at all.

The Finch case now goes to the Upper Tribunal and may well look different when it comes out. The mechanism won't change. Segregation is the only thing standing between "the firm is holding my money" and "the firm has my money", and you cannot audit it yourself. All you can do is check that somebody is required to.

This is reporting on published regulatory decisions and rules, not legal or financial advice. The FCA's findings are provisional pending the Upper Tribunal.