UK: Regulatory Reporting – FCA Publishes Proposals to Decommission Certain Reporting and Notification Requirements

Briefing

07 May 2025

6 MIN READ

1 AUTHOR

The FCA has published a consultation paper (CP25/8) regarding its proposals to remove unnecessary data reporting for firms, including insurance intermediaries.

The proposals form part of the FCA’s implementation of its new five-year strategy to support economic growth¹ and the Bank of England’s and the FCA’s Transforming Data Collection programme, which aims to streamline the regulators’ data collection processes to reduce the cost for firms.

The FCA also highlights that the proposals were informed by the feedback to its July 2024 Consumer Duty Call for Input, in which firms emphasised the burden of regulatory reporting rules².

As a result, the FCA has sought to reduce the regulatory reporting burden on firms by simplifying certain reporting requirements.

Scope of the proposals

The FCA has identified three regular reporting returns as viable for decommissioning, two of which apply to insurance intermediaries as follows:

Return	Current application and scope	FCA’s proposals
Section F (Threshold conditions) of the Retail Mediation Activities Return (RMAR) (also known as RMA-F), currently shown in SUP 16 Annex 18AR and scheduled in RegData	RMA-F currently applies to insurance intermediaries carrying on regulated insurance distribution activities in respect of non-investment insurance contracts. RMA-F asks firms to confirm whether there have been any changes to their close links or their controllers. It then asks firms to confirm that, where relevant, they have notified the FCA of these changes. The FCA collects this information every six months.	The FCA proposes to stop collecting RMA-F, as the FCA has identified that the information collected in RMA-F is available from other sources. RMA-F will be deleted from the Handbook. The FCA has clarified that removing the RMA-F reporting requirement does not remove the requirement on firms to notify the FCA of any changes to their close links or controllers, as set out in SUP 11. Firms should continue to submit such notifications via the relevant change in control notification forms on the FCA website/Connect.
Form G (The Retail Investment Adviser Complaints Notifications Form), currently shown in SUP 15 Annex 8R.	Form G currently applies to insurance intermediaries whose employees act as a retail investment adviser, i.e. giving personal recommendations on life policies. Form G is an event-driven notification which is triggered by complaints in respect of a firm’s employee’s activities.	The FCA proposes to remove the requirement for a firm to submit a Form G notification, as the FCA has identified that firm level data is collected via other complaints reporting. Form G will be deleted from the Handbook.

Return

Current application and
scope

FCA’s proposals

Section F (Threshold conditions) of the Retail Mediation Activities Return (RMAR) (also known as RMA-F), currently shown in SUP 16 Annex 18AR and scheduled in RegData

RMA-F currently applies to insurance intermediaries carrying on regulated insurance distribution activities in respect of non-investment insurance contracts.

RMA-F asks firms to confirm whether there have been any changes to their close links or their controllers. It then asks firms to confirm that, where relevant, they have notified the FCA of these changes. The FCA collects this information every six months.

The FCA proposes to stop collecting RMA-F, as the FCA has identified that the information collected in RMA-F is available from other sources. RMA-F will be deleted from the Handbook.

The FCA has clarified that removing the RMA-F reporting requirement does not remove the requirement on firms to notify the FCA of any changes to their close links or controllers, as set out in SUP 11. Firms should continue to submit such notifications via the relevant change in control notification forms on the FCA website/Connect.

Form G (The Retail Investment Adviser Complaints Notifications Form), currently shown in SUP 15 Annex 8R.

Form G currently applies to insurance intermediaries whose employees act as a retail investment adviser, i.e. giving personal recommendations on life policies.

Form G is an event-driven notification which is triggered by complaints in respect of a firm’s employee’s activities.

The FCA proposes to remove the requirement for a firm to submit a Form G notification, as the FCA has identified that firm level data is collected via other complaints reporting. Form G will be deleted from the Handbook.

The FCA also proposes to tidy up the Handbook by removing reporting instructions and guidance about other data collections that are no longer used and completely removing the reporting forms that are currently marked as “[deleted]”. The FCA anticipates that this exercise will result in the removal of 140 pages from the Handbook.

Further streamlining of reporting requirements

The proposals are the first tranche of data collections that the FCA proposes to remove. The FCA has confirmed that it is reviewing other reporting requirements and plans to consult on removing further regular returns later in 2025. In particular, the FCA is conducting a broader review of the RMAR returns.

It remains to be seen whether the FCA’s future consultations will adopt a more expansive approach to streamlining reporting requirements. While the FCA’s view is that the three returns identified for removal in CP25/8 “no longer serve a critical supervisory function“, their removal appears to be a case of merely deleting duplication and removing redundant material. However, with further input from industry and potential pressure from the government to reduce the burden on firms and unlock economic growth, the FCA might take a broader approach in the future.

In the meantime, the FCA has sought to support firms with more streamlined reporting by recently launching My FCA, which is a new portal setting out all Connect and RegData scheduled tasks for a firm in one place.

Implementation timetable

Comments can be made on the consultation until 14 May 2025 via the online response form or emailing cp25-8@fca.org.uk.

Firms will continue to see the RMA-F and/or Form G data returns scheduled on RegData during the consultation period. However, while the consultation is live, firms who are currently required to submit those returns can choose not to do so and will not incur late return fees. If the FCA ultimately decides not to delete the returns, this approach will cease.

Footnotes