The Isle of Man Financial Services Authority is proposing to change the process its rulebook sets out for the assessment of people's fitness and propriety as a condition of their employment at regulated entities.

To this end, the regulator has issued consultative paper CP18-01/T12 which contains proposals aimed at all regulated entities and not just firms that are subject to the  Financial Services Rule Book. The changes, which the regulator seems to be in no doubt about making, will apply to insurance and pensions firms also. It intends to introduce new documents for people to sign and to change some existing documents, including the 'fitness and propriety' forms that it sends out. Some of the jobs that require fitness-and-propriety assessment will be changing to 'post notification' instead of advance notification, so the regulator is planning to make minor changes to its rulebook.

The introduction of a simplified process and 'post notification' for “notified only controlled functions” requires a change to rule 7.9 in the rulebook. As the post of company secretary is now to be a 'post notification' job, reference to it is to be removed from rule 7.9(2). The 'controlled function' R13 will refer to heads of compliance rather than compliance officers, but this is titular only and no changes are planned to the actual jobs; neither will companies have to change these people's job titles.

Fitness and propriety are made up of integrity, competence and solvency. The period for comments closes on 13 April. The regulator expects its legislative and procedural changes to come into effect in the summer.