Almost 50 brokers are still unauthorised by the Central Bank, six months after the bank planned finalising its registration of financial advisers, it has emerged.
The Bank is mostly concerned about the corporate structure and capital adequacy of certain unauthorised firms, but it is examining possible links to criminality in a very small number of firms.
A spokesman said, however, that the Bank was not, at this stage, concerned about the safety of client funds. Firms would not be allowed trade if such concerns arose, he said.
The Bank took over responsibility for the regulation and supervision of life and non-life insurance intermediaries in April 2001, initiating a registration process that authorised brokers to deal with all or certain institutions.
But almost two years after the system, designed to foster greater consumer protection, was introduced, the registration process is still not complete.
Having said late last June that the process would be finalised in up to eight weeks, the Bank's spokesman said this week that the registration process might continue up to May.
The spokesman said the 49 outstanding cases centred on firms seeking authorisation to advise clients on the products developed by all the institutions in the market.
This is the most attractive registration to brokers as it enables them to operate in the entire life and non-life market.
With 535 firms authorised, the 49 outstanding cases mean less than 600 firms will receive authorised adviser status. This contrasts with the 800 that initially sought such registrations, with many withdrawing for practical reasons.
The Bank said it had no concerns about client protection in the 49 outstanding cases but was not yet prepared to authorise them.
Technical matters linked to corporate restructuring were outstanding in most of the cases, with some brokers required to separate their deposit-taking business from the life and non-life market. In 13 to 15 cases, the Bank had concerns about "capital adequacy".
The spokesman said it had concerns about "personnel issues" in a couple of cases, adding that they centred on people's backgrounds in firms and not their qualifications.
When asked whether the Bank was concerned about criminality, he said that was "possible". But he added that criminality was not necessarily implied in cases where "general issues of fitness and probity" were under examination.
The spokesman said 1,810 firms had been registered as restricted-activity investment product intermediaries.
