Gabriel's more angelic these days, promises FSA

The Financial Services Authority's (FSA) new strategic reporting system has drawn the ire of its users despite having its budget increased to the tune of £5m.

The system, known as Gabriel (GAthering Better Regulatory Information ELectronically) is used by banks, building societies, investment management firms and securities and futures firms to file regulatory information with the financial services watchdog.

Gabriel went live in three stages earlier this year and replaced legacy electronic reporting systems including Memphis, used by securities and futures firms, and Domino, for investment management firms, as well as paper submissions.

However, the FSA admits the system has recently been dogged with "performance and technical issues", including slow response times and companies encountering difficulties logging in - difficulties that last month caused the FSA to extend deadlines for firms submitting information via the system.

The FSA also delayed sending out Gabriel account email activation emails to some companies due to what it described as "continuing high level of demand on the new system", prompting calls to the FSA about when activation codes would arrive.

Such problems have prompted users to tackle the watchdog directly. To date, there have been 18 written complaints filed with the FSA - four on the subject of increased or disproportionate reporting requirements as a result of Gabriel and 14 complaints about its "system performance and access times, system usability and inadequate reporting deadlines", according to the regulator.

"Most of the complaints we have received from firms have resulted from some performance issues we had with the system.

"As we recognised during consultation with the industry, for some investment firms there would be an increase in their overall reporting. In this case reporting requirements were rising from a low base to bring them into line with our risk-based approach which applies the same risk assessment, mitigation and supervisory tools to particular activities regardless of what type of firm undertakes these. We did not receive any adverse comments or questions during this consultation process," the regulator said in response to a freedom of information request submitted by silicon.com.

The problems come despite a budget for the system that has increased by more than a quarter.

The system was originally set to cost the FSA £16.2, with £14.6m spent on development costs and £1.6m on setting up the infrastructure behind them.

By the end of the 2008/9 financial year, the development costs had increased marginally to an estimated £16m, while infrastructure costs had risen more than 300 per cent to £5.1m.

According to an FSA spokesman, the disparity between the two comes because the initial estimate was created too early in the process.

"It's partly because the forecast was reached before we had a detailed estimate and relations had been built up with a supplier... The go-live date was also moved from July to August, and that was part of the budget increase," he told silicon.com.

The spokesman added the problems that had hit Gabriel last month have been addressed by the FSA.

"From our point of view, we've undertaken work to put things right... We've had positive feedback," he said.