GABRIELLA - FAQs

Our interim system, GABRIELLA (GAthering Better Regulatory Information Electronically Late Alternative), enables certain Phase 1 firms (see table A below) to submit the new data items until GABRIEL is implemented on 26 August 2008.

Firms must download the relevant Excel version of the data items from our website, complete them offline and submit them by email to: DataItemReturns@fsa.gov.uk. The 'look-and-feel' is very similar to the data items currently submitted via the Early Reporting System.

Please note that we will ask you to re-submit this information via GABRIEL once the system is available (i.e. after 26 August).

The firms required to submit data via GABRIELLA are in table A:

Between 1 July and 26 August 2008, all firms currently submitting data via the ERS must continue to do so. The ERS data items are:

FSA003 - Capital Adequacy;

FSA004 - Further breakdown of certain credit risk data;

FSA011 - Building Society liquidity.

The content of the FSA028 (Non EEA sub-group) is changing and is due to take effect for reporting period end dates 30 June 2008 onwards.  The main changes affect the filter questions at the beginning of the data item, which allows a firm to indicate whether it is the lead firm in a non-EEA sub-group, for the purposes of reporting on capital and large exposures.

From 1 July 2008, you will be required to submit the revised FSA028 (Non EEA sub-group) using GABRIELLA until GABRIEL goes live on 26 August 2008.  

For reporting period end dates prior to 30 June 2008, you should continue to download the data item from the Early Reporting System (ERS) and continue to submit via the ERS.

The following list are the all the data items for the whole firm range that go live on 1 July 2008 (covering reporting dates falling on 30 June 2008 and thereafter) until GABRIEL goes live on 26 August 2008. However, you many not necessarily need to report every data item listed (for instance FSA019 will not apply to firms in Regulated Activity Group 1 (RAG 1), and only banks in RAG1 will complete one of either FSA010, FSA012 or FSA013).

FSA001 - Balance Sheet;

FSA002 - Income Statement;

FSA008 - Large Exposures;

FSA010 - Mis-match Liquidity;

FSA012 - Non-deposit-taking EEA Bank Liquidity;

FSA013 - Stock Liquidity;

FSA016 - Solo Consolidation data;

FSA018 - UK Integrated Groups;

FSA019 - Pillar 2 Questionnaire; and

FSA028 - Non EEA sub group

FSA045 - IRB Portfolio Risk.

You must submit data in line with your firm's Accounting Reference Date (ARD) and the submission timescales which are detailed in SUP 16.12.

More details on data items.

No, but you will need a password to complete the spreadsheets. We will send the password to the Principal User of the Early Reporting System during June 2008.

The spreadsheets will be password protected. If you have not received a password for the spreadsheets by 30 June 2008 please contact our FSA Customer Contact Centre.

They are secured using the standard Excel password protect function and you will be asked for a password whenever you open the spreadsheets. We will send you this password; please do not change or remove it from the spreadsheets.

If you experience difficulties in emailing the spreadsheet back to us your firm's email system may be configured to reject, or query, emails that contain password protected spreadsheets. Please contact your firm's IT department to find out whether this will cause you a problem and, if so, how it can be resolved.

If a greater level of security is required, the FSA is able to receive emails encrypted with PGP (Pretty Good Privacy). To encrypt emails using PGP, please contact our Customer Contact Centre and ask for a copy of the Gabriella PGP public key. You can then use this key to encrypt emails sent to the Gabriella mailbox. Do not use PGP to sign these emails as this will prevent the FSA from reading them. Please note that the FSA does not provide technical support for PGP.

We will send you an email confirming we've received your submission. However, this email should not be considered as acceptance of a compliant submission; we may contact you later to resubmit it (e.g. if it is incomplete).

No. GABRIELLA is a temporary solution until GABRIEL is implemented on the 26 August 2008. Firms will be required to submit the data in line with their Accounting Reference Date (ARD) and the submission timescales which are detailed in our rules (SUP 16.12).

You will be required to continue submitting (where applicable) the FSA003 (Capital Adequacy), FSA004 (Credit Risk), and FSA011 (Building Society Liquidity) by the Early Reporting System until GABRIEL is implemented on 26 August 2008.

No. To complete the new returns you can download a copy from our website, complete it offline and then submit the return as an attachment by email to: DataItemReturns@fsa.gov.uk

If you identify any material errors after your submission, you can resubmit it with the correct information.

Each spreadsheet allows you to indicate whether it is a resubmission and allows you to indicate your reasons for doing so.

If your firm has consolidated reporting requirements under BIPRU, a Group Reference Number (GRN) will be issued to the known highest-level reporter within your group / consolidation and they should let you know what it is.

The GRN starts with an 'H' and has a four-digit number e.g. H0204. Firms should use the GRN instead of their Firm Reference Number (FRN) when submitting their group data.

Please contact your central compliance team for more information or contact the FSA Customer Contact Centre.

Yes. All the authorised firms in the group will also have their own reporting requirements and all BIPRU firms in the group are required to submit their own relevant data items.

All amounts must be entered in thousands (000s). However, underlying data may be held on firms' systems at a greater level of granularity. When completing a data item in thousands, this may lead to calculated fields (e.g. sub-totals) not validating due to rounding errors. If any adjustments are needed to meet the validations, as a result of these rounding differences, you must make these before the submission. Only validated data items can be submitted, and there are no tolerances for rounding differences.

Please contact your central compliance team for more information or contact the FSA Customer Contact Centre.

No. GABRIELLA is a temporary solution to enable you to submit the new data items until GABRIEL is implemented on the 26 August 2008. So we have developed the spreadsheets principally for manual keying. However, you can copy and paste figures from other spreadsheets or applications, although you will only be able to paste multiple figures simultaneously if they are in adjacent cells in the spreadsheets.

Please note: If you copy and paste a figure into the spreadsheet you will bypass the in-built data type and range validation by the spreadsheets (e.g. you could paste a negative figure into a cell that should not allow a negative number). If this happens, we will reject your submission and ask you to resubmit it.

Yes. If you use formulae that might result in fractions, you must ensure that formula rounds the result to the correct number of decimal places. If you do not round the results, we will reject the spreadsheets and contact you to make a resubmission.

GABRIELLA uses workbooks which have been developed using Microsoft Excel. These are compatible with Excel 2000, Excel 2002, Excel 2003 and Excel 2007 so you can use any of those versions of Excel to open the workbooks and enter your data.

However, we are unable to accept workbooks that have been saved in Excel 2007 format, so if you are using Excel 2007, please choose the option to 'Save a copy of the document' and then select 'Excel 97-2003 Workbook' before uploading and submitting your file to us. Excel 2007 format files have a .xlsx extension, whereas earlier versions have a .xls extension.

You can email us at fcc@fsa.gov.uk.