Do the financial promotion rules apply to social media posts?

The rules are the same on every channel

Section 21 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (FSMA) does not distinguish between a printed brochure and a fifteen-second video. The FCA describes its rules as technology neutral. If a post is a financial promotion, it has to be made by an authorised firm, approved by an authorised firm with the right permission or covered by an exemption. If an authorised firm makes or approves it, it also has to meet the FCA rules, starting with the requirement to be fair, clear and not misleading.

FG24/1, the FCA’s finalised guidance on financial promotions on social media, was published in March 2024 and replaced its earlier social media guidance from 2015. The FCA says it does not create new obligations. It explains how the FCA expects existing rules to be met on social media and when communications by unauthorised people, such as influencers and affiliate marketers, may fall within the perimeter.

Finfluencers and paid partnerships

An influencer who is paid, given products or benefits, or earns commission for promoting a financial product is likely to be acting in the course of business. If the post invites or induces followers to invest, borrow or take out another product within the regime, and the influencer is not authorised, the post needs to have been approved by an authorised firm with the right permission or to fall within an exemption. Otherwise communicating it may be an offence under section 25 of FSMA.

Labels such as #ad or a paid partnership tag are about advertising disclosure. They do not deal with section 21. A clearly labelled advert can still be an unlawful financial promotion.

Affiliates and introducers who post

Many financial businesses pay affiliates, comparison sites and introducers to bring in customers. When those third parties post about a product, the post can be a financial promotion in its own right. The FCA expects firms to take responsibility for promotions communicated by their affiliates and to oversee what is said on their behalf. Section 21 also treats causing a communication to be made as communicating it. A business that commissions, scripts or pays for a post can therefore be responsible alongside the person who publishes it.

Both sides need to think about this. The affiliate needs to know whether what it posts is a financial promotion and on what basis it can lawfully post it. The business needs to know what its affiliates are posting and to stop posts that go beyond what was approved. Lead generation for financial products covers the wider questions for introducers.

Each post has to stand alone

The FCA expects each promotion to comply on its own. A post cannot rely on a link in a bio, a pinned comment, a landing page or an earlier post to supply the balance or the risk warnings it needs. Information behind a link can add detail, but it does not fix a post that is unbalanced on its face.

Platforms often cut text off behind a ‘see more’ prompt or truncate captions on smaller screens. Information that needs to be prominent, such as a required risk warning, should be visible in the post itself and not hidden behind a click or lost to the platform’s layout.

Image-based and short-form formats

Images, infographics, memes, short videos, stories and reels can all be financial promotions. Where the message is carried in an image or a video, the required information generally needs to be in that image or video in a way people will actually see, not only in a caption that may be hidden. Content that disappears after a day is still covered.

FG24/1 also makes the point that some products are complex enough that a format with very little space may not be a suitable place to promote them. If the required balance and information cannot fit, that is a sign the format does not suit the product, not a reason to leave the information out.

Sharing, reposting and comments

Reposting or sharing someone else’s post can amount to communicating it. A business that shares a customer’s post praising an investment, for example, may become responsible for that post as a promotion even though it did not write it. Replies and comments from a business account can also be promotions if they invite or induce. In this area the detail of what was shared, by whom and why matters a great deal.

Your operations are a separate test

Getting social media right deals with the marketing test only. An influencer, affiliate or introducer who does more than post, for example by arranging deals, broking credit or handling customer applications, may be carrying on a regulated activity that needs its own answer. That could mean authorisation, an appointed representative arrangement or a change to the model. Why the two tests are separate · How the operations test works

Common misunderstandings

When a written opinion helps

A written opinion can be useful when you are setting up an affiliate or influencer programme, when a platform or partner asks you to show that your social content is lawful, or when you are an influencer or affiliate deciding whether you can post about a product at all. A solicitor can look at the actual content, the commercial arrangements behind it and the audience it reaches. How written opinions work