Regulated investment firms, debt management firms and claims management firms must send us a client assets report (exceptions are set out in SUP 3.1). Learn about what to include and how to submit it.
General insurance intermediaries must have a client assets report completed (unless they are an exempt insurance intermediary as in SUP 3.1) but are not obliged to send this to us unless the auditors have provided an adverse opinion for the relevant period.
While we do not regulate auditors, we lay out what the auditor’s client assets report must contain (in SUP 3.10[1]).
It is your responsibility to appoint an appropriately qualified auditor and to ensure that they provide the report to us in line with our requirements.
Content of the report
The report should provide a reasonable assurance on the client money and/or custody assets held by your firm.
For investment firms claiming not to have held client money or custody assets (or not authorised to hold client money or custody assets), the auditor should provide a limited assurance report.
Summary of requirements
The report should:
- be prepared using the template in SUP 3 Annex 1[2]
- cover a period of no more than 53 weeks, starting from the last report, or if it is the first one, starting from the time a client assets report was first required
- must be submitted within 4 months of the period end-date
- comply with relevant auditing standards, like the Financial Reporting Council (FRC)
- be signed by the person in the audit firm with primary responsibility for it
Auditors must prepare a separate template schedule identifying the Client Assets sourcebook (CASS) rule breaches noted during the period covered by the report.
If any breaches are identified in the auditor’s report, firms are expected to provide comments on actions taken and/or mitigating factors.
Your auditor should submit through our preferred method via Connect[3]. See our user guide[4] for details on how to do this.