The FCA is requesting completion of a survey from firms with Appointed Representatives (ARs). Where applicable, firms may already have received this. Given the risk of scams, the FCA now takes care to pre-warn firms that a communication is genuine. We have had confirmation that the following survey and email addresses used are legitimate.

“From: ARSurvey <ARSurvey@fca.org.uk> on behalf of ARSurvey <ARSurvey@fca.org.uk>

Reply to: ARSurvey <ARSurvey@fca.org.uk>

Date: Thursday, 28 October 2021 at 15:31

To: XXX >

Subject: Act now: s165 notice to complete our survey on Appointed Representatives by 17 December

For the attention of the Managing Director/Chief Executive

Act now: s165 notice to complete our survey on Appointed Representatives by 17 December

Reviewing the use of the AR regime is a priority for the FCA. We highlighted the importance of tackling harms associated with firms who use the AR regime in our 2021/22 Business Plan, published in July.

While the regime has many benefits, we have seen an increased level of harm across all of the sectors where firms have ARs. We are carrying out further work at our gateway for authorisations, and more targeted supervision to reduce the most significant risks from principals and ARs. We also plan to consult on changes to our rules governing this regime to improve and strengthen it. This includes changes to require more timely information on principals and their ARs, and to improve principals’ ongoing oversight and due diligence of current and prospective ARs.

This survey is being sent to a large sample of principal firms across the relevant financial markets, in relation to their Appointed Representatives (ARs).

The data collection will inform our policy development for the future and will support our supervisory work on ARs.

You are required by this written notice under section 165(1) of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (FSMA) to provide the information required in the link accompanying this notice.

Here is a link to a survey that your firm must complete by 17 December 2021.

What you need to do

The survey asks you to provide information about your ARs and about your own business in relation to ARs. This includes information on the ARs’ activities, complaints against ARs and the revenue of ARs.

The survey includes instructions on how to complete it and should be self-explanatory.

Please provide all the information requested in the survey. If the data is not available or the question is not relevant to your firm, please respond ‘N/A’ where applicable. You can use the comments box at the end of each section of the survey to provide any further comments if you wish to do so.

Please ensure that you submit your response once you have provided all the information.

If the survey does not open, you can copy and paste the link below into a web-browser.

https://www.onlinesurveys.fca.org.uk/jfe/form/SV_0p6aZ5Kjb4DNlxs?Q_DL=ZOdzx34a9kJDFJK_0p6aZ5Kjb4DNlxs_CGC_ZCPkTEu5a1hVF9j&Q_CHL=email

If helpful, you can view a PDF version of the survey here prior to completing it.

Note that we cannot accept a PDF/printed response.

Please note that some of the information requested is for each AR. If you have more than a small number of ARs please ensure you allow plenty of time to complete this.

You must submit your response by 17 December 2021.

Our guidelines on confidentiality

Where the information that we receive from your firm is confidential as defined in section 348 of FSMA, it will be treated as such. Section 348 limits the FCA’s ability to disclose confidential information.

• We aggregated), or
• there is a ‘gateway’ permitting this disclosure.

If you are concerned about phishing emails and scams or if you have any questions or concerns about the attestation, please call us on 0300 500 0597 from the UK, or +44 207 066 1000 from abroad (we are open Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday 9am to 5pm and Thursday will not be able to disclose confidential information unless:

• the information is already lawfully publicly available
• we have the consent of the person who provided the information and, if different, the person to whom it relates
• the information is published in such a way that it is not attributable to a particular person (for example, if it is anonymised or

9.45am to 5pm) or via email at firm.queries@fca.org.uk.

Regards

Financial Conduct Authority”