Information gathering - End of days for Firms Online

The implications of Gabriel for insurance intermediaries are not onerous and, if anything, will make life easier.

First, let me explain what Gabriel is. It is a mnemonic for 'gathering better regulatory information electronically'.

Gabriel is the new system being introduced by the Financial Services Authority to replace Firms Online. Part of its function is to be the platform upon which the Retail Mediation Activities Return report will be handled by the FSA.

Gabriel was due to go live on 1 October 2008 and, during September, you should have received an activation e-mail from the regulator enabling you to access your RMAR information at the appropriate time.

The new system could make life easier for intermediaries and there are numerous reasons for this.

Under the old system, the RMAR could be completed online only and then saved as a draft in Firms Online as you went along. Now, you can download the RMAR on to your own system, complete the information, then upload it again onto the FSA's system.

In future, your firm's RMAR will be much more tailor-made to reflect the type of business that you transact, eliminating the need for any superfluous or irrelevant information.

There are minor changes to the financial, threshold, and product data areas and you will find these to be straightforward and user-friendly.

Although the FSA planned to make changes to the complaints form at the same time, these have now been deferred until August 2009.

You can obtain further information on Gabriel from the Doing Business with the FSA section of the regulator's website - fsa.gov.uk/Pages/doing/index.shtml - and, if you use an external compliance consultancy, they will be able to answer any detailed questions that you have.

Ian Ritchie, director, RWA Group

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