As domicile for approximately 80% of the world's hedge funds, the Cayman Islands have now implemented a mechanism for the electronic submission of annual returns for all funds licensed, registered and administered in the Cayman Islands.
The Cayman Islands Monetary Authority's (CIMA) Managing Director Cindy Scotland said, "Not only will we be able to more efficiently handle the audited accounts that are submitted but we will be in a position to provide better aggregate industry statistics than we have been able to provide so far. This will benefit all stakeholders." and "Because the Cayman Islands is the domicile for a majority of the world’s offshore hedge funds, we believe CIMA’s E-reporting system will be able to improve the reliability and quality of aggregate fund industry statistics globally".
Following successful industry testing, CIMA released on its website the electronic Fund Annual Return (FAR) form and has opened the internet portal through which funds’ local auditors will submit the required returns. Related guidance notes have also been released.
CIMA has been developing the electronic reporting initiative for funds for several months, with assistance from its retained business advisor Ernst & Young and with input from the funds industry. The Monetary Authority expects the initiative to facilitate more efficient collection and processing of returns from the over 8,300 funds it now oversees.
The legislation implementing E-reporting for funds, the Mutual Funds (Annual Returns) Regulations 2006, was passed on 27 December 2006.