FCA Covid-19 survey branded 'a waste of time' by advisers

The survey, sent to about 13,000 regulated firms in June, was designed to inform the FCA on the various markets it regulates amid the coronavirus crisis and will shape the direction of future policy.

Informed Choice executive director and Chartered financial planner Nick Bamford said the 10-question survey was a waste of advisers' time and resources.

"I could rewrite this in two questions - how much cash have you got and can you continue to deliver a service to your clients. End of story. I think it's a waste of time," he said.

He questioned the necessity of the survey, given a lot of the responses resembled information provided in Gabriel reports filed by firms twice yearly.

"Why are they asking this now? Every financial planning firm will twice a year be completing the regulatory returns, and for us the timing of that is February then September, so why add to the workload by asking this now? Why not wait until the next return?" he said.

The FCA is asking firms to complete the survey within five days of receiving it, which Bamford said added unwanted pressure to advisers during an already difficult time.

"It's a bit cheeky to put that kind of pressure - if they think the firms they're asking this information from are under pressure, then don't add to it," he said.

Yellowtail CEO and Chartered financial planner Dennis Hall agreed the survey was an unnecessary drain on advisers' time and reflected a poor reporting structure of the regulator.

"I'm already doing half yearly reports, I've just done one for 31 March, now they're wanting more data. Quite apart from having staff working from home they're adding to my work, with a very tight timescale," he said.

"I can understand why they might want it, but you've got think if they need to do this right now, what's the use of a Gabriel report in the first place? If they can't capture people that night be on a knife edge of financial stability, an emergency questionnaire shows the weak reporting structure."

Hall said some of the questions in the survey, such as whether firms' business models would be positively or negatively impacted by Covid-19, might not draw the information the regulator wanted because they were too simply written.

"The impact it's having on my business model is negative but impact on my business is positive in that it's forcing me to look at things and become more efficient, so I'll probably put ‘neutral'," he said. 

"They're not getting the answer they might be looking for. It is just a waste of time."

Perceptive Planning director and Chartered financial planner Phil Billingham said the tone of the survey reflected the regulator's interest in firms that manage client assets directly, which was not the case for many advisers.

"The regulators are correct in a legitimate interest in looking at firms that struggle with cash flow and hold onto client money because there's a clear moral and legal risk there, so they've got to be asking those questions," he said.

"Advisers who don't handle client money pose little risk to the system and I think we're just caught up [in it]. It's aimed at firms that could have a more systemic consumer risk."

Billingham said it took him under an hour to complete and would provide a snapshot of how solvent firms were and how businesses were coping with the pandemic.

 

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• Topics
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• Informed Choice
• Nick Bamford
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• Phil Billingham
• Dennis Hall