A strange way to start a blog – or is it?
For those of you that are not dual regulated, and are overseen only by FCA (Financial Conduct Authority), then this recent comms from the PRA (The Prudential Regulation Authority) may not have been on your radar.
However, my advice would be to take a read, because invariably when the PRA identify an issue within the financial marketplace, then the FCA are likely to be quick to follow suit!
The letter was sent to all CEOs of dual regulated entities and followed the thematic findings on the reliability of regulatory reporting across firms that fall into this particular category.
Regulatory reporting is key to the oversight and supervision of the markets and so one can see why our prudential regulator is not happy about sloppy, late and inaccurate reporting from firms. It never ceases to amaze me how little store firms put into this type of essential activity. Surely, it should be obvious that the regulatory reporting that you undertake and the timely manner (or not) in which you file the returns tells its own story – good or bad.
The fact that the PRA has taken this step to formally write to all CEOs gives you an indication into the scale of the problem and how seriously the PRA is taking this. That said, depending on firm type and regulatory permissions held, firms will have a myriad of individual reporting to undertake during any given year and the burden and intensity of regulatory reporting is growing ever greater.
To give you an insight into how perturbed the PRA are by what they are seeing, here is a short excerpt of their comms:
Overall, we were disappointed to find significant deficiencies in a number of firms’ processes used to deliver accurate and reliable regulatory returns. It was clear that multiple firms did not treat the preparation of their regulatory returns with the same care and diligence that they apply to financial reporting shared with the market and counterparties. For some firms, there had been a historic lack of focus, prioritisation, and investment in this area.
Strong words indeed!
For those that would like to read the full letter, this can be found here:
Letter from David Bailey and Rebecca Jackson ‘Thematic findings on the reliability of regulatory reporting’ | Bank of England
If we look at the most recent changes to regulatory reporting from a “people” perspective, firms have been hit with the additional reporting requirements in order to provide Directory Data to the FCA. This has been complex to pull together, challenging to interpret requirements and is topped off by very short reporting timescales to register change. All of which builds that “perfect storm” that will affect firms’ abilities to meet these requirements.
But this is where solution providers such as us here at Worksmart, can make a significant difference. By considering employing RegTech solutions that will support any number of regulatory processes, the right vendor can make elements of regulatory reporting much easier.
A perfect example of RegTech that has been developed to manage key regulatory process management and reporting obligations is our Accord solution. Accord enables organisations to manage the key elements of SM&CR including regulatory reporting. If your organisation is challenged by either the management of the regime and its process and/or reporting requirements, then why not contact us at info@worksmart.co.uk or via phone on +44 1908 613613. We would love to share with you all the success stories of how we helped organisations to implement more professional and effective regulatory reporting through the employment of RegTech.