Indeed there are some well publicised cases where the vested interests focused more on the identity and actions of the whistleblower than the issues that were being highlighted. The Central Bank takes the opposite approach. The Protected Disclosures regime allows members of the public or staff of regulated firms to provide information on suspected regulatory wrongdoing in a confidential form to the Central Bank.
Senior individuals are under an obligation to report wrongdoing to us. The numbers of protected disclosures are increasing year on year. 165 protected disclosures were received in the twelve months to June 2019, compared to 117 in the year before that. The reports are taken very seriously, as is our commitment to protect the identity of the individual making the report.