FCA, Revolut, Futures Industry Association and Charles Stanley in Investments

FCA has announced that it received 61 submissions for the third edition of its regulatory sandbox, with 18 making the final cut, including propositions from Barclays, First Direct and Nationwide. Barclays is floating a RegTech proposition which tracks updates to regulations within the FCA Handbook and aligns their implementation to its internal policies. First Direct is testing an app from Bud which learns customers’ attributes from transactional and demographic data to identify suitable financial and non-financial products. Nationwide is looking at robo-advice, with an automated solution providing digital savings guidance and investment advice

Revolut has announced that customers can now buy, hold and exchange cryptocurrency from within its app. Cryptocurrency purchases can be made with any of the 25 base currencies, eliminating the foreign exchange fees charged on most exchanges

Futures Industry Association, the lobby group which includes the world’s biggest banks, is to send a letter to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission warning that the financial system is ill-prepared for the launch of bitcoin futures contracts. The letter was prompted by the CFTC giving the green light for CME Group and Cboe Global Markets to launch bitcoin futures contracts

Charles Stanley has merged its Oxford and Reading offices to create a ‘super’ branch, managing £617m in