Welcome to our first newsletter
Our newsletters are designed to keep financial institutions updated on topical issues of interest and where appropriate Fairmort solutions that address these areas.
We hope to make this a regular feature on our website. If there is something you would like to read about in the next update or have any suggestion or feedback, please Click Here.
On the 18th January 2018 we will be hosting the WILFr User Group Forum for WILFr ('What I'm Looking For' Reporting) users to hear about how our latest developments can help your business and to discuss future developments including joint sponsored developments.
Further details coming soon or contact Clive Bowles for more information.
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a large subject and a huge amount of time has been expended already to understand what this means to each individual business. The following section explains the main steps, as taken from the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) document on GDPR preparation. We have added additional thoughts in the context of banking and the financial sector in general.
Although the ICO refers to these steps as forming a 'checklist', they are far from exhaustive. Given the potential penalties incurred for failing to comply with the GDPR, organisations should interpret the ICO's checklist as an opening dialog, and adapt these recommendations to suit their own operational specifics. From the work we have undertaken so far on GDPR it is clear that the effort required will vary between companies depending on their size, client base, product offerings and even how long they have been in business.
For more information about products and services Fairmort can offer around GDPR please contact Clive Bowles
Now that banks in the UK have made their first Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI) submission, attention is now turning to next year's submission which will include an additional 53 countries on top of the 49 countries previously reported. This provides new challenges in terms of identifying customers who should be reported, communicating with them and gathering the necessary tax information such as Tax Identification Numbers (TINs).
The latest version of WILFr Tax Reporting has been released covering both AEOI and Bank, Building Society Interest (BBSI) reporting. This release covers all the requirements for 2018 reporting together with additional reports and dashboards to assist banks with their indicia checking.
Further updates have also been made to the WILFr Companies House Checks to include Persons with Significant Control checking which is also assisting banks with their Indicia checking process.
Contact Clive Bowles to talk about the capabilities of WILFr and how we can help.
WILFr AEOI v1.1
This release ensures the AEOI component is ready for the December 2017 submission (due May 2018). It also contains performance improvements for sites with larger volumes as the number of countries included increases to beyond 100. Improved search functionality has been provided alongside improved mandatory data and indicia checking tools.
WILFr Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) Patch F
A change has been made to the apportioned amount in the compensation details, Table D, following clarification from FSCS after conflicting advice was received by different licensees from FSCS.
WILFr Companies House v1.02
New rules have been added to the Companies House API to identify changes to the Persons with Significant Control and to check for company account filings within the last 14 days. This enhanced functionality allows banks to identify where their records are out of sequence with the information held at Companies House, whether this is for AML checks for directors, monitoring borrowers or checking whether companies still meet the FSCS criteria.
WILF Data Migration v1.3.3
The new release contains functionality that allows data analysis of the source system to be carried out before any mappings have been configured, or migrations taken place. It highlights fields that contain no data, fields that contain the same data in every record, provides a list of the distinct values in each field and the last date that each field was updated. The results of the analysis are displayed on the screen in a colour coded fashion. This information can then be used to make business decisions regarding which fields should be included in the migration and help in configuring lookup tables and reports.
Status Management allows fields to be marked as 'mandatory' or 'ignored' and allows notes to be applied to fields or mappings to assist in task management and to keep a record of comments or outstanding questions regarding each field or mapping. Notes can be marked as completed and a report created listing all uncompleted notes.
AEOI
There will be an extension to the number of countries signed up for AEOI implementation before September 2018. Many of these are developing countries which required an extended timeline for implementation. There have also been additional signatories recently, with Nigeria becoming included in August 2017, for which the intended date of the first exchange of information is September 2019. For full information, see the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) paper.
BBSI
In the 2017 - 2018 tax year return, there will be changes to the list of fully reportable countries. The BBSI returns for tax year 2017 - 2018 onwards only require data about people living in the UK. As a result, 'fully reportable' countries are being discontinued. For full information, see the Whitehall paper.
Common Reporting Framework (COREP)
IFRS 9: changes to reporting requirements
On Wednesday 16 August, the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) issued an information request to firms subject to reporting requirements set out in Policy Statement (PS) 36/16 'Financial statements - responses to Chapter 3 of the Consultation Paper (CP) 17/16' and PS18/17 'IFRS 9: Changes to reporting requirements', which take effect from 1 January 2018. Specifically, the request is relevant to firms required to submit Financial Reporting (FINREP) and PRA104 -107 instead of FSA001, FSA002 and FSA014, and depending on the accounting standard used, those required to submit certain FINREP templates instead of FSA015.
The request, which was sent to GABRIEL principle users, sought information about the reporting schedules firms are planning to use and responses were submitted in September 2017. The responses will enable the PRA to update reporting schedules on GABRIEL in advance of the 1 January 2018 effective date. For full information, see the Bank of England paper.