The Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) will carry out its risk assessment survey this year after all.
Back in March, the regulator indicated that it would postpone this year’s risk assessment questionnaire (RAQ) due to the effects of the Covid-19 outbreak. It had originally planned to launch the survey in April.
Now, the regulator has decided to go ahead with the exercise, which aids in ranking firms in terms of risk and guides the OSC’s selection process for compliance reviews.
“While we appreciate that firms are continuing to deal with the impacts of Covid-19, we made the decision to issue the 2020 RAQ,” it said.
“It is an important source of information about our registrant population which impacts many aspects of our work,” the OSC noted.
Firms will be getting a bit of extra time to complete the RAQ this year.
The latest edition of the survey will be sent out on June 11, and firms will have eight weeks to return it to the regulator instead of the usual six (deadline will be Aug. 6).
Additionally, the OSC said that since the survey doesn’t cover the effects of Covid-19 — it seeks data for the year to Dec. 31, 2019 — it will be sending an additional survey on July 9. The second survey will collect data on the period between Jan. 1 and June 30, and will focus on the impact of Covid-19 on firms’ operations.
That survey will also be due on Aug. 6.
“We will review this information and assess how it is going to inform our ongoing compliance activities,” the OSC said.