The Mutual Fund Dealers Association of Canada (MFDA) is launching a research project designed to help the regulator better understand the client base of fund dealers.

In a compliance bulletin to fund dealers published on Monday, the MFDA reports that it has hired Toronto-based research firm Investor Economics Inc. (IEI) to carry out a project to assess dealers’ clients. The research aims to “better understand the segment of the Canadian marketplace” that is served by fund dealers; which will, in turn, “better inform the MFDA in performing its regulatory activities,” the MFDA bulletin says.

To that end, the MFDA has hired IEI to analyze “the geographic, demographic and wealth footprint” of fund dealers’ clients, which will require MFDA dealers to supply data on their clients. The data gathered will be anonymized to prevent both clients and firms from being identified in the project, the bulletin says.

The bulletin also spells out the sort of data that the project will need, and asks for feedback from firms on their ability to provide the data, the timing of the data collection, and how to transmit the required data.

Firms’ feedback on the project is sought by March 15.