The way firms receive Directory feedback has changed. Until now (7 September 2020), the FCA has sent two emails upon processing a bulk submission; one email to confirm the processing status of the application and another confirming the successfully processed Individual Reference Numbers (IRNs). 

From 7 September, all firms will receive one standard email about their Bulk Add submission. The email will ask firms to go into Connect to check their feedback file. All Firms will receive this email and a feedback file in Connect regardless of whether there were any errors in their submission. 

The new feedback file will list all the individuals submitted as part of the bulk notification, not only those with errors. This will allow Firms to centralise the data from their notification and easily compare which individuals have been processed successfully and which contained errors and must be resubmitted. 

The feedback file will also contain the following information:

• A list of all the individuals submitted as part of the bulk notification, not only those with errors.
• Which individuals have been processed for appearance on the Directory as part of the submission, along with the IRNs for any new individuals. The FCA will no longer be sending out emails containing the IRNs.
• Where it has not been possible to process the submission of an individual for appearance on the Directory an error message explaining the problem will appear in the relevant row.
• The feedback file will have a new “IRN Status” column that will indicate whether it is a new individual (previously unknown to FCA) with the value “New Individual” populated, or it is an existing individual with the value “Existing Individual” populated.
• When the FCA has been unable to process all of the individuals in the submission, due to a generic issue such as an incorrect file format, incorrect template or the template being modified, the firm will receive a single piece of feedback on the whole submission. For example, “Columns missing or file is corrupted. Please do not modify the csv file once converted from xlsx”.

The user guide has also been updated, which firms should refer to before submitting any directory notification. 

Queries should be addressed to DirectoryCommunications@fca.org.uk.