The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is set to extend its survey of firms to determine their financial resilience and assess the impact of the Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic on their business activities. The regulator will be sending out their questionnaire to an additional 10,000 firms having already surveyed 13,000 firms in June 2020. The scope of the survey is being broadened to cover solo-regulated firms in most of the 21 portfolios that the FCA supervises which it did not capture the first-time round.
The survey comprises ten questions, which are broadly unchanged from the June survey and should be completed online. The FCA says the survey should take no longer than an hour to complete. Among the questions, the FCA is seeking information about:
- Amount of liquidity available
- Cash needs and expected inflows over the next three months
- Impact of Covid on the firm’s business model
- Level of safeguarded (client) money
- Any extensions/delayed payments negotiated with creditors
- Income for the last financial year
- Whether the firm has accessed any government-backed schemes
To aid completion the FCA has added an external FAQ document around the specifics of what is being asked in the survey, plus a pdf link of the full set of survey questions which can be viewed separately.
Affected firms will receive a warm-up email about the survey from the FCA in the week commencing 27th July 2020. The survey will then be sent out in four tranches on the 5th, 6th, 7th and 10th August.
Completion of the survey is compulsory and firms will have 15 working days in which to respond. Firms have been given longer to respond this time in recognition that the financial services industry is entering what is traditionally the holiday season.
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