The FCA has advised as follows.

“As you will be aware, all firms with Directory Persons must have certified / assessed their staff and submitted the relevant information to the FCA to ensure they remain compliant with FCA regulatory requirements before 31 March 2021. A number of your members may still be required to submit their Directory Persons data for Solo-Regulated firms on the Financial Services Register ahead of the deadline.

As previously communicated for solo-regulated firms, firms wishing to submit information using the multiple forms should have done so by 18 March to ensure they are processed in time. Firms wishing to make submission after this date should use the single-entry form but can commence using the multiple form from 1 April.

For the imminent deadline, we expect a potential high volume of submissions and envisage that processing of some applications may take more than 24 hours. Firms are encouraged to submit their information early to avoid delays in the reflection of their data on the Register. We will be adding notification messages on the possible outage to Connect (‘Latest News’ section) and also request firms not to contact the Supervision Hub on questions related to this.

For more information about the Certification Regime and a full list of the certification functions under the SM&CR, please review the Guide for FCA solo-regulated firms and the Policy document. Our Directory website also includes user guides for firms and commonly asked questions.

We have put together a hints and tips document.”