Retained Compliance

For any authorised financial services firm, ensuring the firm meets its compliance obligations is vital. The Financial Conduct Authority (“FCA”) has considerable powers at its disposal to deal with instances of non-compliance on the part of authorised firms, including the ability to publicly censure or fine the firm or its senior personnel or even, in extreme cases, to remove the firm’s regulatory permissions, effectively ending its ability to carry on regulated activity.

Whilst this is an obligation that all regulated firms need to take very seriously, in practical terms, it can present a considerable challenge. Recruiting experienced, capable compliance staff can be difficult for any firm, but particularly so for smaller firms and start-ups, where budget constraints or the need for a part-time rather than full-time resource may limit the pool of potential candidates available to the firm. For medium-sized or larger firms, compliance resource needs can vary over the course of the year. And for all firms, the ability to make use of external compliance resource either to supplement internal capacity or to provide independent oversight and assurance may be attractive, particularly to those members of the firm’s senior management team who have personal accountability for compliance-related matters.

Finnovation’s retained compliance support service is designed specifically to address these needs, by providing regulated financial services firms with dedicated, expert external compliance support, tailored to their individual needs. This solution gives firms on demand access to a dedicated external compliance specialist, with experience and knowledge specific to the firm’s industry sector or sectors.

Depending on the firm’s individual requirements, this can be at an agreed number of days per week or month, or on the basis of a “bank” of hours per year which can be used as and when the firm requires additional support in its compliance function.

The compliance specialist provided by Finnovation can be used by the firm to supplement its existing compliance function by carrying out day to day tasks during periods of high-demand – for instance, approving financial promotions or undertaking monitoring reviews – or to assist in the delivery of specific compliance related projects such as the launch of a new product or service, or the implementation of revised policies and procedures to take account of changing regulatory requirements.

Clients who are already making use of this service tell us that it provides them with greater flexibility in their compliance resource and a degree of assurance that they will remain in compliance with their obligations regardless of circumstances, whilst being more cost-effective than recruiting contractors or temporary staff directly.