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The Central Bank has released a statement today, announcing that its inspection of retail intermediaries has resulted in the majority of firms becoming compliant or revoking their authorisations. A retail intermediary, or broker, is a regulated firm that receives and transmits orders in certain financial products and/or provides advice in relation to those products and can be mortgage intermediaries, investment intermediaries or insurance/reinsurance intermediaries. All retail intermediaries are required to apply to the Central Bank of Ireland for authorisation and it is an offence to engage in insurance, investment mortgage intermediation without such authorisation.
The inspection consisted of intensive engagement with 325 retail intermediaries that had failed to submit Annual Returns, including unannounced on-site visits to 127 firms, spanning 23 counties, over a 14-week period. The key points from the inspections are:-
- 325 firms that were not meeting minimum regulatory reporting obligations targeted.
- 134 firms have since sought voluntary revocation of their authorisations. 171 firms are now meeting reporting obligations.
- Further supervisory powers will be utilised in relation to the remaining 20 firms.
- A large number of the 171 firms that submitted annual returns revealed potential areas of non-compliance with key regulatory requirements, which are being pursued by the Central Bank.
Director of Consumer Protection Bernard Sheridan stated:
“The Central Bank has a strong consumer protection framework in place to ensure that customers of retail intermediaries are protected. Although many of these firms are small and are categorised as low impact under the Central Bank’s risk assessment framework, we have a clear and tailored strategy in place for these firms which includes the analysis of annual online returns and regular thematic inspections of the sector.
While this targeted approach may be resource intensive, it has resulted in increased overall compliance in the retail intermediary sector with 92 per cent now meeting reporting obligations which will enable us to effectively supervise them.
The Central Bank’s Consumer Protection Outlook Report 2016 highlighted our continued focus on firms that are not meeting regulatory obligations and, due to the successful outcome from this targeted engagement, more on-site visits have already commenced to deal with the remaining non-compliant firms.”
Please click here for full statement.
Authors: Shane Dwyer and Elaine Morrissey