Electronic reporting will hurt SMEs
Plans by the Financial Services Authority to introduce electronic reporting in the next few years, could see many small financial services players struggle to cope.
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The FSA plans to force regulated companies such as banks, insurers, insurance brokers, IFAs and mortgage advisers to report online details of their finances, business exposure and capital position, according to the FT.
But organisations such as the British Insurance Brokers’ Association and the Association of Mortgage Intermediaries claim about 30% of their nearly 18,000 members do not have access to email or the internet and claim a move to e-reporting would be like ‘the government switching off analogue television and leaving them in the dark’.
The FSA is planning a phased move to electronic reporting, and has estimated the cost to the 48,000 intermediaries in the UK of such a switch at between £3.5m and £9m, but representative bodies claim that ‘a zero should be added to these figures’.