From 1 December, all principal firms will need to send regular data to the FCA about their Appointed Representatives (ARs). When this AR data is to be reported will depend on the firm’s Account Referencing Date (ARD).
Failure to report on time will incur a late return notification and a £250 administration fee.
ARs must confirm their details when completing their annual Firm Details Attestation (FDA), and must attest the details of all ARs including if they have more than one principal, and if their details have or have not changed since the previous year.
The acronym-loving FCA must receive the FDA within 60 days of the ARD, within the ‘REP025’ form.
Got that?
The FCA say that effective use of key data is key to their strategy, and they use it to inform where to target their efforts in order to focus on the highest-risk principals, ARs and Introducer Appointed Representatives (IARs) (another acronym!).
The REP025 form will enable them to receive data about ongoing reporting of complaints and revenue, and to help them identify trends and emerging risks.
If you are regulated by the FCA, you will need to report complaints and revenue data for all ARs/IARs you had during the relevant reporting period.
This includes where the principal-AR relationship ended (was terminated) during the reporting period. However, your firm only needs to report data for the period in which it was a principal of the AR/IAR. So, for example, if the AR/IAR was terminated on 30 June, your firm will need to provide data from the relevant period starting date up until 30 June.
