Some investment brokers may find that product producers, such as banks and building societies for whom they act as agents, will not be able to take business from them if they do not comply with Central Bank requests for information and documentation. An article in Business This Week yesterday referred to insurance companies as the product producers involved. But insurance products are sold though insurance brokers who are regulated by the Irish Brokers Association and the Insurance Intermediaries Compliance Bureau. The Central Bank regulates investment brokers who act as agents for the banks, building societies and other institutions which sell investment products.

As regulator of these agents the Central Bank has sought documentation from them and it plans to tell the product producers, which it also regulates, not to do business with agents who do not return the information required.