Personal Money · Saturday, 26 September 2026

01 Briefing what happened

Clients of WealthTek, a collapsed wealth firm, are getting more than 57m pounds back. The bank guarding their assets had checked the register three times.

Personal Money 22 sources

Britain's financial regulator has now secured over 57m pounds for clients of WealthTek from three firms that were meant to keep the money safe. None of the three is paying a fine.

57m pounds

secured for WealthTek clients in just over a year

from three firms: CACEIS UK, Sapia Partners and Barclays Bank UK [1]

times CACEIS checked the register on WealthTek

each check showed the firm was not allowed to hold certain client assets, and the accounts were opened anyway [1]

150m pounds

passed through Sapia's client money accounts, 2014 to 2020

approved for payment by WealthTek's own staff, who also ran the checks [3]

0 pounds

in fines on CACEIS or Sapia

the FCA finished the two investigations in 12 and 13 months and calls that a sign it is getting faster [2][1]

The lead story — what happened

CACEIS UK, a bank that keeps other firms' clients' assets safe, will pay 31.7m pounds to clients of WealthTek. Britain's financial regulator, the FCA, censured it in June and did not fine it. [1]
With that payment the FCA says it has secured over 57m pounds for WealthTek clients in just over a year, from CACEIS UK, Sapia Partners and Barclays Bank UK. [1]
WealthTek was a wealth management firm that looked after ordinary people's investments. It went into a special administration on 6 April 2023. [3]
In December 2024 the FCA charged WealthTek's principal partner with criminal offences including money laundering and fraud. [2]
CACEIS UK became WealthTek's sub-custodian in November 2020. On three occasions it checked the Financial Services Register, which showed WealthTek was not authorised to hold certain client assets. It did not take sufficient action. [1]
It also did not spot that WealthTek was not allowed to hold client money. It opened client accounts for WealthTek to use, then failed to review alerts its own system raised. [1]
Sapia Partners, the authorised firm that WealthTek worked under from 2013, agreed in April to pay 19,637,950 pounds. WealthTek staff approved each payment out of the client accounts. WealthTek staff also ran the checks on those accounts, so nobody outside ever looked. [2][3]
The FCA says it would have fined Sapia 10.6m pounds, cut to 7.4m for settling early. It chose a public censure instead because Sapia cooperated and paid up. [3]
About 150m pounds passed through Sapia's client money accounts between 2014 and 2020 while the failings lasted. [3]
The payments go to WealthTek clients who have not been able to get all their money back. [1]

CACEIS UK, June31.7 m pounds

Sapia Partners, April19.6 m pounds

The two payments to WealthTek clients named in the FCA's notices. Barclays also paid, and the FCA gives only the total of over 57m pounds, so its share is not drawn.

Who is involved

WealthTek

a wealth management firm that ran clients' investments; it collapsed into special administration in April 2023 [3]
CACEIS UK

an asset servicing bank that held WealthTek's clients' assets from November 2020; it will pay 31.7m pounds and was censured [1]
Sapia Partners

the authorised firm WealthTek worked under from 2013, which held its clients' cash; it will pay 19.6m pounds and was censured [2]
The FCA

the Financial Conduct Authority, Britain's regulator for financial firms; it ran both investigations in 12 and 13 months [1][2]

How it unfolded

2013 Sapia takes on WealthTek, then called Vertus, and starts holding its clients' money [2]
Nov 2020 CACEIS UK becomes WealthTek's sub-custodian and opens accounts for it [1]
Apr 2023 WealthTek goes into special administration [3]
Dec 2024 the FCA charges WealthTek's principal partner with money laundering and fraud [2]
Apr 2026 Sapia agrees to pay 19.6m pounds and is censured [2]
Jun 2026 CACEIS UK agrees to pay 31.7m pounds; the total secured passes 57m [1]

Where this points

The next thing to watch is the criminal case against WealthTek's principal partner, charged in December 2024, and whether the payments already agreed close the gap for every client who is still short. [2][1]

What is pushing on the whole day

The bar and the word are our reading of how hard each one is pushing today. The arrow is where it is heading. The evidence is in the stories below.

Paying clients instead of fines Building↑

CACEIS UK and Sapia were both censured and neither was fined, after agreeing to pay WealthTek's clients. [1] Wood Group got 30% off a 13m pound fine for accepting the FCA's findings. [10] Three claims management firms agreed to cut their fees during the FCA's review. [8]

Rules written but not followed High→

The law says Britain's nine biggest banks must offer a basic bank account, and 62% of mystery shoppers got no clear route to one. [4] Nationwide knew customers were running businesses through personal accounts and missed 24 fraudulent furlough payments. [20] Sapia's 2015 auditor found no formal sign-off for large payments out of client money. [3]

Mortgage costs swinging with oil Steady↓

UK lenders raised fixed mortgage rates in March after the war with Iran pushed up energy prices. [13] By July the average two-year and five-year fixed rates had fallen back to 5.52%, the lowest since early March. [15] House price forecasters still cut their numbers for the year. [15]

Middlemen taking a cut Building↑

Claims management firms charge up to 33% of a car finance payout for a claim the regulator's own scheme handles free. [8] Darren Reynolds, an adviser, hid high exit fees from British Steel workers he moved out of their pension. [12] Revolut, now a full UK bank, can sell loans and overdrafts to its 13 million UK customers. [5][6]

The rest of the day

9 more stories on this beat.

Each with its own sources. None of these is a link to the story above.

02
Banks turn away people who need a basic account

In July the FCA published the results of 298 mystery shops at the banks that must offer basic accounts. It rated 28% of the visits good or very good, 38% fair, 20% poor and 14% very poor. [4] A basic bank account has no overdraft and no fees, and the nine largest providers must offer one by law. [4] In 29% of visits staff did not mention it until asked, and in about 15% never at all. [4] Overall 62% of shoppers left with no clear way to apply, and the banks have now promised to fix this. [4]
- Good or very good28%
- Fair38%
- Poor20%
- Very poor14%
How the FCA rated 298 mystery-shop visits about basic bank accounts.
Why it matters — About 4.3 million adults in the UK have one of these accounts, which are what wages and benefits get paid into, and 900,000 adults still have no current account at all. [4]
03
Revolut becomes a full UK bank

On 11 March Revolut, a money app with 13 million UK customers, got a full banking licence from the Prudential Regulation Authority, the part of the Bank of England that licenses banks. [5][6] It applied in 2021 and got a restricted licence in 2024, which let it test with a few customers and hold no more than 50,000 pounds of deposits in total. [5] It can now offer protected deposit accounts, loans and overdrafts at scale. [6] It has also applied for a US banking licence. [7] The Bank of England counts 69 banks authorised since 2013. [22]

Why it matters — For a customer, the change is that Revolut can now hold their deposits in protected accounts without the 50,000 pound total cap of the restricted licence. [6][5]
04
The FCA looks at the claims firms

In May the FCA launched a review of claims management companies, the firms that pursue compensation for people in return for a share of the payout. [8] It said some used misleading adverts and unfair exit fees, and some signed people up without permission. [8] These firms have targeted victims of the car finance scandal, where they can charge up to 33% of a payout the regulator's own scheme provides free. [8] By May the FCA had removed or changed 800 misleading adverts and helped 28,000 people leave contracts free. [8] It has since opened a market study with the solicitors' regulator. [9]

Why it matters — Millions of drivers are due car finance payouts, and every pound a claims firm takes is a pound the driver does not get. [8]
05
Nationwide fined 44m pounds for missing fraud

In December the FCA fined Nationwide, a building society, 44m pounds for weak checks on financial crime between October 2016 and July 2021. [21] Nationwide knew some customers were running businesses through personal accounts, which its own terms banned, and had no process for the risk that created. [21] One customer used personal accounts to receive 24 fraudulent Covid furlough payments worth 27.3m pounds over 13 months, 26m of it in eight days. [20] The tax authority clawed back 26.5m pounds; about 800,000 pounds is still unrecovered. [20]

Why it matters — The 800,000 pounds that was never recovered came from UK taxpayers, and the failures ran for nearly five years before Nationwide fixed its systems. [20]
06
Wood Group fined 13m pounds for wrong accounts

On 4 March the FCA fined John Wood Group, a company listed on the stock market, 12,993,700 pounds for publishing inaccurate results for 2022, 2023 and the first half of 2024. [10] After some projects went badly, its accounting choices were shaped by a wish to keep the results it had already announced. [10] The share price fell 78% by April 2025 and the shares were suspended that May. [10] The company accepted the findings and got 30% off. [10] That one fine is most of the 17,956,123 pounds the FCA has fined in 2026 so far. [11]
- Wood Group13 m pounds · 72%
- All other 2026 fines5 m pounds · 28%
The FCA's fines in 2026 so far total about 18m pounds. Wood Group's is most of it.
Why it matters — Investors relied on those numbers, the FCA said, and anyone holding the shares watched them lose 78% of their value before trading stopped. [10]
07
Adviser who moved steelworkers' pensions loses appeal

On 19 January the Upper Tribunal, a court that hears appeals against the regulator, upheld the FCA's ban on Darren Reynolds and his fine of 2,037,892 pounds. [12] Reynolds advised members of the British Steel Pension Scheme to give up a guaranteed pension for high-risk investments, knowing the advice was wholly unsuitable, and hid high exit fees. [12] He lied to regulators and moved his family home into a trust to avoid paying his debts. [12] More than 17.6m pounds has been paid in compensation to more than 470 of his customers. [12]

Why it matters — Many of those customers lost more than the compensation scheme's limit, so the difference is gone. The FCA says it will bankrupt him if needed to recover the fine. [12]
08
Mortgage rates jumped in March and eased by July

On 6 March Nationwide, HSBC and Coventry Building Society raised some fixed mortgage rates after the war with Iran pushed up oil and gas prices. [13] Lenders price fixed deals off market bets on the Bank of England's rate, and those bets swung from a cut to a 70% chance of a rise. [14] The average two-year fix was 4.84% and the five-year 4.96% that week. [13] By July both had fallen back to 5.52%, their lowest since early March, with the Bank's rate unchanged at 3.75% all year. [15]

Two-year fix, 6 Mar4.84%
Five-year fix, 6 Mar4.96%
Both, July5.52%
Average UK fixed mortgage rates, from Moneyfacts figures. July's 5.52% was the lowest since the start of March, so rates sat higher in between.

Why it matters — The people hit hardest are those whose five-year deals from before the rate rises are ending now, because their new rate is set by these swings and not by the Bank's rate. [14]
09
Average UK house passes 300,000 pounds

In February Halifax, Britain's biggest mortgage lender, said the average UK house price reached 300,077 pounds in January, the first time it had passed 300,000. [16] Prices rose 0.7% in the month and 1% over the year. [16] Surveys count differently: Nationwide put January's average at 270,873 pounds, and the official statistics office put November's at 271,000. [16] Halifax said wages had risen faster than prices since 2022 and expected a rise of 1% to 3% this year. [16] By July forecasters had cut those numbers, and Savills expected a fall. [15]

Why it matters — Halifax itself called the milestone potentially daunting for first-time buyers, while saying wages rising faster than prices since 2022 slowly helps them. [16]
10
Four million US children signed up for Trump Accounts

The US Treasury launched a mobile app for Trump Accounts, a new tax-deferred savings account for children, shortly before the accounts opened on 4 July. [17] Families enrol at TrumpAccounts.gov, on Form 4547, or in their online IRS account. [17][18][19] Children born from 2025 to 2028 with a Social Security number get a one-off 1,000 dollars from the US government. Parents and employers can add up to 5,000 dollars a year between them. [17][18] More than 4 million children had been signed up when the app went live, and 1 million had claimed the 1,000 dollars. [18]

1 of 4
million children signed up; one in four had claimed the 1,000 dollars
About 4 million children were enrolled and 1 million had claimed the US government's 1,000 dollars when the app launched, according to figures Kiplinger attributes to the IRS.

Why it matters — The accounts are meant for a child's later costs such as college or a first home, so the money is designed to sit and grow for years. [18][17]

02 Lesson why it matters

A check only works if someone has to act on what it finds

CACEIS looked WealthTek up on the register three times, saw it was not allowed to hold certain client assets, and opened the accounts anyway.

The twist

Checking three times and doing nothing protects nobody. All it does is prove later that the firm knew.

The picture

0 of 3

CACEIS UK looked WealthTek up on the Financial Services Register three times. Each time the register showed the firm was not allowed to hold certain client assets. None of the three checks stopped the accounts being opened.

How it works

A rule says: check before you act
Somebody runs the check
The check finds a problem
Nobody is required to stop
The work goes ahead as if the check had passed
Years later the regulator finds the check in the file

The same force, elsewhere today

Where this chain is also running, in today's other stories.

Sapia's client money accounts

the rule required a second person to check payments; in practice the people paying out were the same people checking, so the check could never say no
Basic bank accounts

the law says nine banks must offer the account, and nobody at the counter was required to mention it, so 62% of shoppers left with no route to one
Nationwide's 44m pound fine

the society knew customers were running businesses through personal accounts, which its terms banned, and had no process that made anyone act on it
Wood Group's accounts

the company checked its own project numbers against the results it had promised, so the check bent toward the promise

Where you've seen this

Fire doors

an inspection log signed every month while the door stays wedged open

Passwords at work

a rule to change them every 90 days, ticked off, and the new one written on a note

Two signatures on a cheque

worthless when both signers report to the person who wrote it

The catch

A check with real teeth costs time and money, and most checks find nothing, so firms quietly trim the ones that rarely bite.

And the whole of it

Most of us sit somewhere inside a chain like this. We sign a form, tick a box or run a check someone else designed, and cannot see whether anyone reads it. WealthTek's clients could not see it either.

03 Truth what's really going on

What is really going on

The money WealthTek's clients are getting back comes from the firms that were paid to guard it, not from the firm that lost it. CACEIS UK checked the register three times and opened the accounts anyway, and at Sapia the people paying money out were the people checking it, so both firms are paying clients in return for not being fined. [1][2][3]

Why it works on us — A 57m pound headline sounds like the story is over, and the FCA's own notices say the payments only go to clients who are still short, without saying how short.

Who gains

CACEIS UK and Sapia Partners — Both were censured, not fined. The FCA says it dropped a 10.6m pound fine on Sapia because it cooperated and paid clients instead. [1][3]
Claims management companies — They charge up to 33% of a car finance payout for a claim the regulator's scheme handles free, and millions of payouts are due this year. [8]
Revolut — A full licence lets it hold deposits without the 50,000 pound total cap and sell loans and overdrafts to 13 million UK customers. [5][6]
Wood Group — It accepted the FCA's findings and got 30% off a 13m pound fine. [10]
The FCA — It cites the 12, 13 and 9 month investigations into Sapia, CACEIS and Wood Group as proof it is getting faster. [2][1][10]

Who pays

WealthTek clients who are still short — The payments go only to those who could not reclaim their money in full, and the size of the remaining gap is not published. [1][2]
People who need a basic bank account — 62% of mystery shoppers left the bank with no clear way to apply, and 69% of those without a passport or fixed address risked rejection or delay. [4]
UK taxpayers — About 800,000 pounds of the furlough fraud Nationwide failed to catch was never recovered. [20]
Darren Reynolds' customers — More than 470 of them were compensated 17.6m pounds in total, and many lost more than the compensation limit allows. [12]
Wood Group shareholders — The share price fell 78% by April 2025 on results that turned out to be inaccurate, and the shares were then suspended. [10]
Borrowers whose five-year fixes end now — Their new rate is set by market swings that jumped in March after the Iran war, not by the Bank of England's unchanged 3.75%. [14][15]

What nobody knows yet

Open questions from across today’s stories — ours included.

01

How much WealthTek's clients lost in total, and how many are still short after 57m pounds.

The FCA gives the total it has secured and says payments go to clients who could not reclaim their money in full. It does not publish the shortfall. [1][2]
02

What Barclays paid.

The FCA names Barclays Bank UK as one of the three firms but gives only the combined total of over 57m pounds, so its share cannot be worked out from CACEIS's 31.7m and Sapia's 19.6m. [1][2]
03

Whether WealthTek's principal partner has been tried.

The FCA charged him with money laundering and fraud in December 2024. Nothing in this edition's sources says whether a trial has happened. [2]
04

Which banks turned basic-account shoppers away.

The FCA rated 298 visits but publishes only the total across all nine banks and names none of them. [4]
05

Whether Revolut gets its US licence.

The Financial Times reported the application earlier this year; the only source on the outcome could not be read, so it is not used here. [7]
06

Where UK house prices end the year.

Halifax expected a rise of 1% to 3%, Nationwide 2% to 4%, and Savills now expects a fall. Two surveys put June growth at 0.6% and 2.2% because they weight regions differently. [16][15]
07

Whether the FCA recovers Darren Reynolds' 2m pound fine.

He moved his home into a trust to avoid his debts, and the FCA says it will bankrupt him if necessary. Whether it has collected anything is not stated. [12]
08

How many of the 4 million Trump Accounts hold any money.

Kiplinger's figures, attributed to the IRS, count children signed up and children whose 1,000 dollars was claimed, not accounts funded by parents. [18]

04 Hope carry this

Britain's financial regulator has secured more than 57m pounds for clients of WealthTek in just over a year, from three firms that were meant to keep their money safe.

Also true today

More than 17.6m pounds has been paid in compensation to more than 470 people whose pensions Darren Reynolds moved out of the British Steel scheme.
The number of adults in the UK with no bank account fell from 1.1 million in 2022 to 900,000 in 2024. More than 97% of adults now have a current account.
By May the FCA had removed or changed 800 misleading adverts by claims firms, and more than 28,000 people had been able to leave those firms' contracts without paying.