The FCA has censured CACEIS UK and secured a £31.7m voluntary payment to clients of the failed firm WealthTek, after the asset-servicing bank failed to act on warning signs that left client assets exposed to financial-crime risk. According to the regulator, CACEIS checked the Financial Services Register on several occasions, saw that WealthTek lacked permission to hold certain client assets and client money, yet still opened and then poorly monitored accounts on its behalf.
For retail forex and CFD traders the lesson is about permissions, not just presence on a register. A firm appearing on the FCA's register is not the same as that firm being authorised to hold your money or your assets — the scope of its permissions is what counts. Before funding any account, check the broker's exact authorisations on the Register, confirm whether client money is held under segregated, regulated arrangements, and treat custody as seriously as spreads or leverage. The FCA notes it has now recovered over £57m for WealthTek clients across related cases, a reminder that weak controls upstream can take years to surface downstream.