A guidance note being issued to Society members highlights the FSA requirement for regulated firms to report information about themselves and their activities, under the Regulatory Returns (PS 04/8 and 04/9) reporting requirements.
Richard Fox, chief executive of the Society of Mortgage Professionals says, "I am very concerned that many practitioners are unaware that these requirements are now in force. Ignorance will not be an excuse, firms who fail to submit their data within the permitted timescales will find that the FSA has the power to impose financial penalties and other disciplinary sanctions."
A reporting regime has been introduced by the FSA to enable them to monitor adherence to threshold conditions and specific rule requirements, and to allow the identification of trends within individual firms and in the market as a whole.
"The information will also be used to identify firms upon which to focus regulatory activity, calculate periodic fees and payments to the FOS and FSCS so it’s vital for Society members to ensure that their firms get their returns in" comments Richard Fox.
In addition to checking the accuracy of standing data, firms must also complete a Retail mediation activities return (RMAR), a Mortgage lending & administration return (MLAR) and a Product sales data (PSD) report. Only electronic reporting is acceptable to the FSA.
