Financial advisers and financial services professionals have taken to the comments section to voice concerns over the rising burden of regulation.
Readers cited personal examples of how they have spent days completing surveys and filling in forms for the Financial Conduct Authority, which for a large firm is merely an inconvenience; for a small firm it is "disproportionate", they claim.
In response to FT Adviser's exclusive yesterday (July 17), FCA acknowledges 'burden' of adviser reporting in letter to MP, readers commented that red tape seems to have become tighter than ever before.
One reader wrote: "This article is most appropriate timing.
"I have just finished five full days of work preparing the financial resilience return, due end of July, my RMAR returns, due 1st week in August, and my wheelbarrow load of paper required in the 1st of the now new and regular consumer duty reports, due end of July.
"And I haven't even mentioned the masses of other reports and returns and record keeping to be completed during the rest of the year.
In the story, a letter from the FCA to an adviser's former constituency MP, Sir William Cash, acknowledged that complying with the current UK and European regulatory regimes can create additional time and cost pressures on smaller companies.
The letter said: "We recognise that this level of reporting creates a burden, in particular for smaller firms. When introducing a new return form, we consult with affected parties before doing so and prepare a cost-benefit analysis, to ensure that any burden is proportionate to the benefit it provides."
Not all agreed it was proportionate.
Another reader called the burden of regulation "ridiculous".
They wrote: "The collection of information has become ridiculous. They ask for irrelevant information that cannot tell them anything, and some financial information over and over again. I am sure the collection of more information is a ploy to allow them to work from home rather than do the real job."
Some readers said they have had to outsource or hire compliance consultants just to keep on top of the work, while some questioned whether the reporting was really necessary, or just an exercise in data-gathering that leads to nowhere.
For another reader, this level of regulatory form-filling was clearly "box ticking reports rather than reporting information on which the FCA can act".
The FCA has been approached for comment.
