FMA restarts regulatory activities

The Financial Markets Authority says regulatory activities will restart in a “phased approach” as New Zealand continues to respond to the disruption caused by Covid-19.

Sunday, August 2nd 2020, 9:17PM

It had allowed market participants some flexibility and relief from their normal requirements earlier in the year out of concern for the disruption that businesses were facing.

But in an update outlining its priorities for the next three to six months, the regulator said it had resumed its supervisory monitoring programme, which includes planned, reactive and thematic monitoring of the licensed populations and entity types. On-site engagements are scheduled to commence again in August.

Its immediate priorities were supporting investors and customers by “helping them to make good decisions and highlighting risks and issues”, providing ongoing support to entities and working with firms to help them respond to the impacts of Covid-19, identifying and addressing misconduct, including scams and other predatory practices related to Covid-19, swiftly responding to market disruptions and significant events and setting out its expectations on good conduct, particularly in relation to the treatment of customers in vulnerable circumstances.

It was also focusing on progressing the new financial advice regime, which starts on March 15, and continuing to work with the Council of Financial Regulators and other agencies to monitor developments and ensure effective responses to system-wide issues.

“Work on our medium-term strategic priorities is ongoing, but we recognise Covid-19 poses immediate challenges and could seriously undermine consumer confidence and damage the wider sector. We will also continue to progress the medium-term strategic activities that support our statutory objective of fair, efficient and transparent financial markets.

“We will continue to consider any reasonable requests for regulatory relief, in particular where it enables providers to better meet the needs of customers. This may include ‘no action’ relief or exemptions. We will assess each request for relief on a case by case basis.”

Financial reporting deadlines were unlikely to be extended further.

Tags: FMA licensing regulation