Yet more Gov spaffing on legals and tribunals

[Passing Time]

1 hour ago, The Voice of Reason said:

I’m retired now for a few years but was employed in the CSP/ finance sector for best part of forty years and witnessed the rise of the FSC. ( as it was then) from becoming a helpful and guiding regulator to the monster that has become the FSA.

I appreciate that it has now become part of a global industry that has to show to its European and International masters how tough it is on regulation to the extent that it dissuades legitimate businesses from setting up here.

This in turn leads to such businesses having to turn to less desirable jurisdictions to establish an operation. All a bit counter productive.

In my working lifetime we would have potential clients with perfectly reasonable propositions looking to use our company (ies) to provide the corporate services they required to operate and then tie ourselves up in knots with various risk rating profiles (operating geographical areas, nature of the business, etc etc) which seemed to be designed to not evalute the business but merely to satisfy the regulator 

I’m certainly not saying that there were not  wrong uns trying to abuse the system and that they should not be weeded out.
However even from my early days within the industry it was clear that regulations were sorely needed but as in all these sorts of things there is or was overkill.

I’m glad to be out of it

This… Government cottoned on to the fear factor around financial services and created the monster it has now become. Chances of scaling it down - nil. This is now a money earner for them. They care not a single jot about the businesses they are ruining

 

[Omobono]

there must be as many people working in the FSA   ,as the decision makers in whats left of the banks and CSP's  , term regulated to death comes to mind , 

[Roger Mexico]

1 hour ago, Omobono said:

there must be as many people working in the FSA   ,as the decision makers in whats left of the banks and CSP's  , term regulated to death comes to mind , 

From the latest Annual Report:

There's much talk of making it self-financing (as it's supposed to be) but at the moment half of the £7 million cost of running the FSA comes from the Treasury.

If anyone's interested, the full cost order is here.  Oddly this is only the second document from the Financial Services Tribunal to appear on their site (the previous one was from 2011), which suggests they're not particularly busy or most of their stuff isn't published.

[offshoremanxman]

6 hours ago, Roger Mexico said:

From the latest Annual Report:

There's much talk of making it self-financing (as it's supposed to be) but at the moment half of the £7 million cost of running the FSA comes from the Treasury.

But to be fair that only applies because IOMG moved Companies Registry under the DfE years ago when it used to be part of the FSC and the filing fees generated the bulk of their income when that was the case. What’s they’ve now left is an impossible situation where they’ve been told to cover their own costs when it’s technically impossible for them to do so without hugely downsizing (which external agencies would be mad about) or constantly fining their own license holders for additional revenue. Logically it makes sense for IOMG to move the registry back. 

[asitis]

6 minutes ago, offshoremanxman said:

or constantly fining their own license holders for additional revenue.

Exactly, damaging the very businesses which help to keep this profligate Government afloat (just).

They need to realise, not every financial business is involved in dodgy dealing, many are respectable businesses providing professional services for clients, like much of the rest of the world. If they carry on as they are business will be going to the rest of the world !.

If they worked with business, instead of situating themselves as an entity to be feared, the whole island would benefit !

 

Edited February 15, 2023 by asitis

[offshoremanxman]

13 minutes ago, asitis said:

Exactly, damaging the very businesses which help to keep this profligate Government afloat (just).

I’m just saying they should move the registry back it was generating a few million a year for them. It didn’t make much sense moving it away and it would take the pressure off the current revenue model. 

[The Phantom]

2 hours ago, asitis said:

Exactly, damaging the very businesses which help to keep this profligate Government afloat (just).

They need to realise, not every financial business is involved in dodgy dealing, many are respectable businesses providing professional services for clients, like much of the rest of the world. If they carry on as they are business will be going to the rest of the world !.

If they worked with business, instead of situating themselves as an entity to be feared, the whole island would benefit !

 

Agreed, I'd honestly say that 99.9% of businesses and clients are bona fide and just trying to make a living.  In 20 something years in the industry, I have literally only seen a couple of cases of dodgy antics and neither of these were money-laundering/financing for drug dealers or terrorists. 

I've actually discussed 'The Red Tape Factory' with a few compatriots in the industry from different firms.  The honest view is that the FSA just want a handful of big CSPs that will pay a huge annual licence fee to them.  What they'd then do with their staff however is anyone's guess. 

[jackwhite]

I seem to have a very different view on this.

Is there far too much regulation in insurance and financial services currently? Yes, absolutely. Is that driven by the IOM FSA? Well, to a degree, as they choose what to implement. However it's more or less the same as the UK in the policies. I think we're probably under more scrutiny than the UK as we are perceived to be a 'tax haven'. The UK is probably as problematic, if not more, but that's a conversation for a different day.

Take the instance of a certain financial firm on the Isle of Man. Father and son firm, company fined and both suspended as directors. What do do they do? Change their status to "Company Owner" and still work in the business day to day. To me, that's an example of the FSA's powers not stretching far enough.

I had reason to be involved in the recent Insurtech problem on the Isle of Man too. Having spoken to all companies involved, they were highly praising our FSA for making it so easy for them to do business on the Isle of Man. Granted, the red carpet was rolled out to them. That said it's interesting their views on it. 

From what I understand, crypto is something the FSA are keen to steer away from as they fear a long term crash of it and, if we have significant amounts of these type of companies, that we will drawn into the firing line along with them for allowing it. 

That said, having not read the report and just the comments, this is another example of IOMG being abysmal in court actions. We only have to look at the Ranson case to see they are deplorable in these situations. 

So whilst I agree with the sentiment on over regulation and their handling of this particular case, I don't see them as darkly as others in this thread. 

[The Phantom]

3 minutes ago, jackwhite said:

I had reason to be involved in the recent Insurtech problem on the Isle of Man too. Having spoken to all companies involved, they were highly praising our FSA for making it so easy for them to do business on the Isle of Man. Granted, the red carpet was rolled out to them. That said it's interesting their views on it. 

Have any of them actually set up a business here yet?  As what the FSA say and do are two entirely different things.  Mrs Phantom works in insurance and tells me often of this new onerous new rule or report the FSA has brought in.  She's not compliance, but spends more time doing reports and stuff for the FSA than actual insurance work.  They recently lost a big piece of business that was backed by a country's sovereign fund (Singapore maybe) because of some ridiculous requirements the FSA were demanding to test the director they would appoint was 'fit and proper' which was not required in any other jurisdiction. 

Similar to some of the banks on the Island that will tell clients they can open an account for you in 7 days.  6 months later you are having to get a Notary to confirm your favourite colour and inside leg measurement and still no bank account. 

[jackwhite]

11 minutes ago, The Phantom said:

Have any of them actually set up a business here yet?  As what the FSA say and do are two entirely different things.  Mrs Phantom works in insurance and tells me often of this new onerous new rule or report the FSA has brought in.  She's not compliance, but spends more time doing reports and stuff for the FSA than actual insurance work.  They recently lost a big piece of business that was backed by a country's sovereign fund (Singapore maybe) because of some ridiculous requirements the FSA were demanding to test the director they would appoint was 'fit and proper' which was not required in any other jurisdiction. 

Similar to some of the banks on the Island that will tell clients they can open an account for you in 7 days.  6 months later you are having to get a Notary to confirm your favourite colour and inside leg measurement and still no bank account. 

No they haven't. 

Having spoken to all participants at length, it will depend on how much business they can get from it. Some of them are investigating whether they could set up here and then trade with companies in the UK. It's still early days to be fair. 

As an aside, some of the tech on display was fascinating. However a lot of was around MLRO etc. That's my only criticism of the initiative. That said it would, in the case you give above, have avoided that situation. 

I'm also going to be involved in the Fintech initiative, to a lesser degree. I'm only really attending as a family member is very interested in it. It will be interesting to see what sort of firms are involved in that. 

I totally agree with you regarding some of the requirements of MLRO and bank accounts, don't get me started on them. 

That said, as I mention above, I don't have the same degree of negativity towards them. 

[asitis]

7 minutes ago, jackwhite said:

That said, as I mention above, I don't have the same degree of negativity towards them. 

Don't worry it will come with time !

[The Phantom]

7 minutes ago, jackwhite said:

No they haven't. 

Having spoken to all participants at length, it will depend on how much business they can get from it. Some of them are investigating whether they could set up here and then trade with companies in the UK. It's still early days to be fair. 

As an aside, some of the tech on display was fascinating. However a lot of was around MLRO etc. That's my only criticism of the initiative. That said it would, in the case you give above, have avoided that situation. 

I'm also going to be involved in the Fintech initiative, to a lesser degree. I'm only really attending as a family member is very interested in it. It will be interesting to see what sort of firms are involved in that. 

I totally agree with you regarding some of the requirements of MLRO and bank accounts, don't get me started on them. 

That said, as I mention above, I don't have the same degree of negativity towards them. 

Yes, some sort of Fintech to streamline MLRO that would be acceptable to the FSA is definitely needed.  

[BillyNoMates]

https://www.linkedin.com/in/danny-brewster-318b65b9?

https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2016/01/08/controversial-neo-bee-ceo-resurfaces-after-disappearance/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/232v5n/the_full_picture_from_danny_brewster/

https://bitsonline.com/neo-bee-danny-brewster-resurfaces/

arent they the firm behind the 21 bank ads at the airport as well?

[John Wright]

The longwinded gibberish they send out. And I’m regulated in practice by IoM Law Society.

Ive done my return, last October, with stats for 12 months to 30 September. Now they want a different form of return by 30/6 covering the 12 months to 31/12. So I’ll be reporting 9 months twice.

 

Dear 

The Isle of Man Financial Services Authority is implementing important changes to the annual return process in order to simplify and streamline the reporting requirements for designated businesses. In future, we will require you to complete only one return – an AML/CFT Statistical Return in the format of an Excel spreadsheet.

This will allow us to capture key data points from designated businesses that are consistent with those obtained for regulated entities. AML/CFT Statistical Returns are a key part of our intelligence gathering and help to inform the picture of risk across the registered and regulated sectors.

As well as updating the format of the return, we are also changing the reporting period, the submission date, and the amount of time registered businesses have to populate the return.

The information below sets out the new requirements and what they will mean for you. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact amlreturns@iomfsa.im

 

What

·        As required by section 13(1)(a) of the Designated Businesses (Registration and Oversight) Act 2015 (“the Act”), a registered person must for each year of registration, submit to the Authority an annual return as specified by the Authority. 

 

·        In previous years, the Authority specified that the return required by section 13(1)(a) of the Act is to be submitted via the DNFBP portal (www.iomdnfbp.co.im) in the form of an annual AML/CFT Return.

 

·        With effect from 15 February 2023, the Authority specifies that the return as required by section 13(1)(a) of the Act shall now be in the form of the AML/CFT Statistical Return (Guidance for the Annual AML/CFT Statistical Return).

 

·        Going forward, no annual returns will be generated via the DNFBP portal.

 

·        Any updates to designated businesses such as change of address or change in specified persons should continue to be submitted via the DNFBP portal. 

 

Why

·        Although all registered persons were required to complete the designated business annual return on the portal, in recent years 40% of registered persons also completed the AML/CFT Statistical Return. 

 

·        Having only one return will simplify and streamline the reporting requirements for designated businesses.

 

·        The AML/CFT Statistical Return will allow the Authority to obtain key data points from designated businesses which are consistent with the data being obtained for regulated entities to inform the picture of risk across both registered and regulated sectors.

 

·        Relating specifically to designated businesses registered as legal professionals, the AML/CFT Statistical Return previously allowed for reporting on ‘matters’ as opposed to customers. To ensure the data collected is consistent across all registered and regulated entities as well as being aligned to the requirements of the Isle of Man’s AML/CFT Legislation, the AML/CFT Statistical Return is to be completed on customers rather than matters.

How

·        The AML/CFT Statistical Return is in the format of an excel spreadsheet which is to be populated by the registered person and provided to the Authority by e-mail to amlreturns@iomfsa.im

 

·        As well as the change in the format of the return for designated businesses, there are also changes to the reporting period, the submission date, and amount of time registered businesses have to populate the return. The Authority is publishing this statement now in order to give affected businesses as much notice as possible of the changes:

 

o   Previously, the annual return became available on the portal on 1^st October each year, for a reporting period up to 30^th September, and was due to submission by 1^st November each year - meaning registered persons had 31 days to populate and submit the return.

 

o   The AML/CFT Statistical Return is to be populated with a reporting period up to 31^st December and due to be submitted by 30^th June the following year - meaning registered persons now have up to 6 months to populate and submit the return.

 

·        This year, all designated businesses registered under the Act as at 31^st December 2022 are required to submit an AML/CFT Statistical Return by 30^th June 2023 for the reporting period ended 31 December 2022. For designated businesses registered after 31^st December 2022, the first reporting period will be up to 31^st December 2023 and due for submission 30^th June 2024. For the avoidance of doubt, no annual return will be required to be submitted on the DNFBP portal.

 

·        The Authority is planning on hosting a webinar or seminar to provide an overview of the AML/CFT Statistical Return and how the data will be used by the Authority. Details of this event will be shared in the coming weeks. 

 

·        Failure to submit the AML/CFT Statistical Return by 30^th June 2023 will result in a civil penalty being issued in line with the Designated Businesses (Civil Penalties) Order 2015.

 

If you have any questions or require any assistance completing the AML/CFT Statistical Return, please contactamlreturns@iomfsa.im.

 

Yours faithfully,

AML/CFT Division

Isle of Man Financial Services Authority

PO Box 58 • Finch Hill House • Bucks Road • Douglas • Isle of Man • IM99 1DT • Tel:

+44 (0) 1624 646000

[Zarley]

Bloody hell! That's gibberish alright. 

One phrase they use really irritates me... "populate the form". Presumably they mean "fill in the form" - why can't they just say that? It sounds like they want you to use those little emojis of people waving and whatnot. 

Edited February 15, 2023 by Zarley
Clarity