PS23/3 – Creation of a baseline financial resilience regulatory return: Feedback to CP22/19 and final rules

Following a public consultation (CP22/19) concerning the introduction of a new regulatory return for certain FCA only regulated firms (solo-regulated firms) in October 2023, the FCA has now published a corresponding policy statement (PS23/3). In it, the Authority describes the responses it has received to its consultation and the final FCA Handbook changes as they will be made and apply from January 1, 2024.
To recall, in above noted consultation, the FCA proposed to introduce a new regulatory return, the so-called FIN073, to measure and monitor the resilience of all supervised firms excluding credit brokers, investment firms subject to MIFIDPRU, not-for-profit debt advice bodies, PRA-authorized persons, supervised run-offs, and temporary permission firms. The FCA thereby proposed to require the completion of the following five questions on a quarterly basis and to submit the new return via the FCA’s online data collection platform RegData.
Table 1 – Proposed Content of the new FIN073

The return would replace a current survey that is launched more or less quarterly by the FCA on an ad-hoc basis. The FCA also proposed to issue a corresponding guidance to clarify its expectations and certain definitions within the new return.
————
In its policy statement now, the FCA notes that it will go forward as proposed, without any modifications. This is all so more interesting given the fact that only about one third of the 102 respondents confirmed their support of the proposal. In fact, a large number of respondents criticized the additional compliance burden related to the filing of the new FIN073 return, criticized potential overlaps with other regulatory returns, and / or criticized the scope of data requested by the regulator. Nevertheless, the FCA is clear on its opinion and will not make any changes to the proposal. The new form will have to be filed beginning January 1, 2024.