The Financial Conduct Authority has alerted advisers that it is repeating its coronavirus financial resilience survey for a sixth time later this month.
The regulator said this was a repeat of the survey it issued in August and must be completed in addition.
The FCA said it was issuing the survey again to help it better understand the impact of Covid on firms’ financial resilience.
Firms will receive the survey on one of the following dates: January 18, 19, 20 and 24.
The FCA said firms must submit their response within 20 working days of receipt of the survey, according to an email seen by FTAdviser.
The survey is being sent to all relevant firms, although there are a small number of exceptions for reasons such as where firms have provided related information to the regulator as part of another data collection exercise.
The FCA had issued the first phase of its Covid-19 impact survey between June and August 2020.
But the latest request is not expected to be the last as the FCA stated it expects to “repeat the survey in the future”.
Darren Cooke, chartered financial planner at Red Circle Financial Planning, said: “It is getting ridiculous, every firm I know has had minimal if any impact from Covid, some have even had positive results from it, I know I have.
“We already have to submit our RegData reports twice a year, which should show any company suffering financial issues at any time, not just from Covid. It's not like we see any actual action from these surveys.”
The FCA has published the survey data on its website where it says it is seeking to understand the effect Covid-19 is having on the finances of the firms it regulates to better guide its supervisory actions.
It says: "Disorderly failures can harm consumers, the effectiveness of markets, and overall confidence in the UK’s financial system. We seek to ensure that firms fail in an orderly way and minimise harm to consumers and disruption to markets where possible."
In January last year, the regulator said it had identified 4,000 financial services firms with low financial resilience and at heightened risk of failure.
Survey questions to firms have previously included what impact the coronavirus is having on their business model and whether permanent employees have been furloughed.
sonia.rach@ft.com
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