Some FCA regulated firms will shortly receive an email from the regulator advising that they will be asked to complete a survey about the financial impact of Covid-19 on their business.
The survey is being sent to 13,000 firms in total and is designed to help the FCA understand which sectors might be under stress
The survey is 10 questions long and is likely to take you an hour to complete. You will have seven working days to complete it. It is designed to provide a summary of your cash position.
Who will receive it?
The survey follows on from a similar survey sent to General Insurance market and will be sent to members who's predominant business model is one of the following:
E-money and payment services;
Investment advice and intermediation
Wealth managers
SIPP operators
Peer-to-peer (P2P) lending and crowdfunding platforms
Other platforms
Consumer credit firms
Custodians
Personal and commercial insurance intemediaries
Contract-for-difference (CFD) providers
All firms within the above categories ('portfolios') will be asked to complete the survey, unless they are already in contact with the Supervision Team or have already responded to other similar surveys.
The FCA expects it may extend the survey to a wider range of firms in future, potentially to all those who are solo-regulated (regulated by the FCA but not the PRA).
The process
If you are to be sent this survey you should shortly receive an email from the FCA about this.
That will be followed by an email containing a link to the survey which you would either receive on 4 June or 8 June, with a deadline of either 12 June or 16 June respectively.
It will only be sent to one person within your firm and they are the only person who can complete the survey, unless you call the Supervision Hub to ask for another person to receive the survey link.
It will be completed through an online form, accessible via computer or mobile phone, and is likely to take up to an hour.
A response is manadatory as the FCA is exercising its powers under section 165 of FSMA in requesting this information.
Focus of the survey
The 10 survey questions will focus on your firm’s:
liquidity / cash availability and needs
recent financial performance
scale of business activity
access to government schemes
Financial difficulty notifications
It is worth noting that when your firm is in financial difficulty, it should advise the FCA of this via notification and there has been useful guidance from the FCA on their expectations in this regard since the arrival of Covid-19.
Whether caught by the survey request or not, if your firm's finance resilience is being stresed, you may want to take a look at this guidance for firms and consider notifying: https://www.fca.org.uk/firms/information-firms-coronavirus-covid-19-response#firms'-responsibilities
Let us know if you have any concerns or questions.
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