Ongoing Regulatory Support, Advice and Monitoring

Across a range of sectors, FCA regulated firms face particular challenges in meeting often complex and rapidly changing regulatory requirements.

Smaller firms often struggle to cope adequately with the demands of the Compliance role. Ideally they would benefit from outsourcing compliance, but the FCA and other regulators will not tolerate the delegation of responsibility for adequate compliance. Such firms need a resource to whom they can turn for cost-effective advice, guidance and hands-on support.

Larger and medium sized firms often have a Compliance team, but such teams often struggle to stay up to date with developing regulatory requirements and/or lack the specialist knowledge or skills to deal with certain more specialist areas of regulation. They need a cost-effective point of reference and trusted adviser to whom they can turn in such situations.

Our team of compliance specialists provide ongoing bespoke and tailored support to clients in a wide range of sectors. We use our extensive knowledge of financial services regulation, governance and risk in various jurisdictions to alleviate our clients’ compliance burden so that they can focus on what they do best.

We do not have a ‘one size fits all’ approach and will work with you to understand and establish your needs to put together a service that best suits your continuing requirements. This can be anything from an all-encompassing ongoing support suite, where we will allocate a team of dedicated specialists to provide proactive, practical support and solutions to an ad hoc arrangement where you call upon us as and when the need arises.

Our ongoing support suite include:

Onsite Compliance Reviews

We will assess compliance monitoring, records management and systems and controls at your premises. We will identify any areas of weakness and recommend remedial actions aimed at resolving any current or potential issues effectively and in a practical manner that is fully suited to the needs of your business.

Regulatory Future-Proofing

Your dedicated consulting team will proactively horizon scan and provide regular contact to discuss any forthcoming regulatory developments and their impact on your firm enabling you to future-proof compliance. We will explore with you any necessary changes to your business and personnel and any current and future plans so that you can take the necessary actions to ensure compliance with new regulatory standards and requirements.

Where minor revisions to rules or regulations occur, we can assist with updating relevant documentation to ensure that you remain compliant.

In an ever-changing regulatory world, our team have vast experience in project managing major regulatory change, find out more information on our regulatory change service here.

On Call Remote Support

This is a package of services where we will be on hand to provide prompt support to address routine regulatory issues, questions or problems as they arise. This might involve queries such as those relating to conduct or suitability issues, simple changes of control, dealing with regulatory correspondence and reviews of financial promotions.

We will review and advise on the continuing adequacy of your compliance framework including compliance files, formal registers and reporting schedules as FCA Rules and regulatory requirements evolve, ensuring your documents, in addition to relevant policies such as Personal Account Dealing, Breaches, Conflicts of Interest, Best Execution, Gifts and Hospitality, Whistleblowing and Anti-Bribery, are kept fully up to date.

We will review your compliance manual and monitoring programme and provide advice and updates to ensure that you are adhering to the latest regulatory standards.

Reporting

We can provide assistance with financial and non-financial regulatory returns including reviewing your GABRIEL returns, support with drafting annual close links, controllers and if applicable appointed representative reports to the FCA.

We can provide reviews of your Internal Capital Adequacy Assessment Process (ICAAP) and Individual Liquidity Adequacy Assessment documentation (ILAA) from a regulatory perspective.

Click here for more information about our full financial reporting service.

Additionally, we can assist you with internal reporting obligations such as helping your Money Laundering Reporting Office (MLRO) with drafting of the annual MLRO report and Money Laundering risk assessment and the Compliance Officer with drafting the Compliance Officer’s report.

Variations of Permission and Changes in Control

Should you need to conduct minor variations of permissions or change in controls, we can provide advice and guidance and assist you with the preparation of necessary forms to ensure the smooth progression of the application.

Access to our Online Compliance Solution — 'Portal'

‘Portal’ is our online governance, risk and compliance solution. It is a personalised suite of applications (“apps”) that allow you to monitor and control business activities, communicate with colleagues, respond to requests, prompt actions and gather data. The suite of apps provides a complete compliance infrastructure that will enable you to efficiently manage its compliance documentation, complete compliance monitoring tests and track outstanding reviews and items. The portal software can also include other third-party apps. Click here for more information.