FAIS to be replaced by COFI - 2nd bill tabled

National Treasury issued the second draft of the new COFI (Conduct of Financial Institutions) Bill on 29 September 2020. For those of you that do not know, the COFI Act will will replace the FAIS Act in totality and be the focus for your compliance in coming years. In addition, the COFI Act will regulate the conduct of other services and product providers. The bill also wants to ensure a level playing field. We need to keep the regulator accountable and we need to ensure the regulation makes sense whilst preventing the situation where "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others", as the book of Animal Farm in the picture above warns.

The latest changes in the second draft are:

• The application of the COFI Bill in relation to existing legislation.
• The approach to conduct standards
• Refined licensing approach
• More detail around transformation (BEE and EE) and enforcement thereof
• Medical schemes are removed until more work is done
• Streamlining of interaction between the Financial Markets Act and the COFI Act
• Application to the non-retail business where clients are corporates or where clients are professional investors, for example

We are responding and commenting as a compliance firm to the draft. If you are a member of an industry representative body (like the FIA or FPI) you can also provide your comments through them. If you are not a member of an industry representative body then you can send your comments directly to National Treasury or to us to add it to our comments and to send on your behalf.

this piece of legislation will control your business in the future and determine the shape and form of your industry for years to come.

​I, for one, am concerned at the new practise we see at the FSCA where they seem to ask extra and unlimited amounts of questions to new licensees without informing the applicant if these new requirements beforehand which leads to copious delays. In addition to that, I am concerned at how difficult it is with the FAIS Act in its current form to become a Key Individual or to start your own FSP. We will be taking up these and other concerns in our comments to the FSCA.

We encourage everyone to comment in whatever form because this piece of legislation will control your business in the future and determine the shape and form of your industry for years to come. Any risks, detriment to you or unnecessary red tape that is not addressed will become part of your life and we'd like to avoid that as much as possible.

The due date is 30 October 2020 but we've heard from some sources that they are still receiving comments after that as extensions were provided to certain industry representative bodies until 16 November 2020. Comments submitted directly to National Treasury can be sent to: marketconduct@treasury.gov.za .

You can view the full published bill and other documents here.