On 27 March 2025, the Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice (BCAP) published its response to its previous consultation on broadcast restrictions for advertising unregulated investments.

In the response, BCAP announces that it is introducing changes to Section 14 of the UK Code of Broadcast Advertising (the BCAP Code), which relates to financial products, services and investments. The changes to the BCAP Code will clarify the scope of BCAP’s restriction of advertising for investments that are not by the Financial Conduct Authority to specialised financial channels and programming.

The amendment will clarify that the existing restriction applies in practice to unregulated ‘investments’ that meet the likely consumer understanding of that term, i.e. an opportunity for the consumer to invest their capital in the expectation of making a profit. This clarification is intended to remove the risk of the restriction being applied inadvertently to unregulated products that technically fall within the definition of investment activity set out in the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 but that are not in line with a layperson’s understanding of an investment, and that are not compatible with the type of risky financial products from which the restrictions were intended to protect general broadcast audiences.

The changes take effect immediately, but BCAP notes that the amended rules will be subject to review after 12 months.