The Client Assets Resolution Pack – the ‘CASS RP’ – helps speed up the return of client money and assets (client assets) if a firm fails. Find out about these documents and if your firm is affected.
Our rules on this require firms holding client assets from investment business to keep certain new and existing documents and records relating to client assets in a CASS RP. This is so they can be retrieved promptly if the firm fails – while the firm is a going concern, as well as when the firm has become a gone concern.
The rules are aimed at reducing the impact of firms’ failure on clients by requiring firms to have a CASS RP. A CASS RP will facilitate the return of client money and assets if a firm fails. The provisions are in Chapter 10 of the Client Assets Sourcebook (CASS 10).
CASS RP: contents
The CASS RP contains documents and records (for example the latest client money reconciliations and a list of custodians where custody assets are held) that would help an insolvency practitioner (IP) return client assets more quickly following an investment firm failure.
How to hold these records
You do not have to physically duplicate existing records and you can hold CASS RP documents in electronic form.
You can set out how to retrieve these existing records in a master document, as long as your firm is able to retrieve the documents within the timeline specified in the rules, both as an ongoing and a gone concern.
Is your firm affected?
Your firm needs to maintain a CASS RP if it is a firm to which either or both of CASS 6 (the custody rules) and CASS 7 (the client money rules) apply by virtue of their client assets holdings. Firms must maintain a CASS RP for the whole period they hold client assets and they should ensure that they have a CASS RP in place from the moment they begin to hold client assets.
You do not need a CASS RP if CASS 6 applies to your firm only because it arranges safeguarding and administration of assets. See CASS 10.1.