A recent survey carried out on 105 respondents from the financial services industry suggested that most are well prepared for the FATCA regime in the Cayman Islands.

The survey was carried out by local consulting firm FTS during the period March 9th to 19th and provided some interesting insights into how those working in the industry viewed FATCA and the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) initiatives.

Over 82% of all respondents had a ‘fairly good idea’ or had ‘a thorough understanding’ of the FATCA which bodes well for the general compliance culture of the Cayman Islands” Mr. Paul Byles, Director of FTS, said.

He added that given that the respondents performed a variety of roles in their firms and were not solely compliance focused, the result demonstrated that FATCA has had a very good level of awareness in the market place.

“While technical training is important for compliance professionals, general awareness of regulatory and tax compliance initiative by non compliance staff is also key to a firm having an effective risk management system. It means that non compliance staff obtain a better understanding of why they have to perform certain duties in their own roles”, he added

Only 8% of compliance staff said they have not had FATCA training. 64% of all respondents said their firms had FATCA procedures with a further 13% saying they believed their firms had such procedures.

The survey also highlighted a few non compliance related industry trends including a result cementing the role of the funds industry in the jurisdiction.

“While this was not a robust scientific exercise, the survey also suggested that around 60% of the financial services industry is driven by the funds sector”, said Mr. Byles. The survey asked respondents to list the services offered by their firms and the results showed that funds services or those known to be primarily related to the funds sector represented 60% of the responses.

The survey suggested that the CRS initiative, while also demonstrating a good level of awareness, is somewhat behind FATCA on training and awareness. “This is to be expected. CRS is a relatively new initiative and I suspect that within a couple of years its level of awareness and training will catch up with that of FATCA,” Mr. Byles said.

FTS thanked the Compliance Association, Fund Administrators Association, Law Society, Company Managers Association and Chamber of Commerce for their assistance in getting the survey out to their members.

The survey provides some fascinating results and the full report can be obtained from the firm’s website at www.ftscayman.com
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