In October 2022 the FCA published a consultation paper (CP22/19) with proposals to replace the FCA Financial Resilience Survey with a new regulatory return in summer 2023.
The main purpose of the new return is to reduce the financial and administrative burden that ad hoc surveys place on firms. The regulator also wants to further understand the risk of firm failure and improve the quality of financial resilience data collected from FCA solo-regulated firms.
The consultation is now closed, but until such time that the new return comes in to force the FCA still requires firms to complete the Financial Resilience Survey when required. As such, a new survey is being sent to relevant FCA solo-regulated firms this month to help the regulator understand how the current financial climate is impacting them.
Surveys will begin going out on 7th February 2023 (split in to 2 Tranches), and firms will have 3 weeks to complete them. Completion of the survey is mandatory under section 165 of the Financial Services & Markets Act (FSMA) 2000.
Covering 9 questions in total, the survey is designed to provide information about the following 3 key areas:
Liquidity/cash availability and needs
Recent financial performance
Scale of business activity
Firms will be emailed a link to complete the survey online and it is expected to take no more than an hour to complete