The Definition

Compliance monitoring is the ongoing process of systematically reviewing and assessing an organisation’s adherence to regulatory requirements, industry standards, and internal policies. This practice involves the active evaluation of operations, procedures and practices to ensure they align with legal obligations and ethical guidelines.

Through compliance monitoring, organisations test their policies and procedures to identify potential risks, detect non-compliance issues, and implement corrective actions in the form up updated controls or additional training to address and maintain a high standard of regulatory compliance.

This proactive approach not only mitigates legal and financial risks but also fosters a culture of accountability and transparency within the organisation.

Why is Compliance Monitoring Important?

Compliance monitoring is important because it tests an organisations internal systems and controls consistently adhere to legal, regulatory, and business standards, which is crucial for several reasons:

1. Risk Mitigation: By actively monitoring compliance, organisations can identify and address potential issues before they escalate into significant legal, financial, or reputational risks.
2. Legal Obligation: Many industries are governed by strict regulations and failure to comply can result in severe penalties, fines, or even legal action. Compliance monitoring helps organisations meet these legal and regulatory obligations, thus avoiding costly sanctions and reputational damage.
3. Operational Integrity: Consistent compliance monitoring ensures that business processes and practices are aligned with established policies and regulations, maintaining the integrity and efficiency of operations.
4. Reputation Management: Firms that demonstrate a strong commitment to compliance are more likely to earn the trust of customers, partners, and stakeholders, enhancing their reputation and competitive advantage.
5. Continuous Improvement: Through regular monitoring, organisations can identify areas for improvement, refine processes, update training programmes, and stay updated with evolving regulations, leading to continuous enhancement of their compliance programs.
6. Ethical Standards: Compliance monitoring reinforces an organisation’s commitment to ethical conduct and accountability, fostering a culture of integrity and responsibility across all levels.

Who is Responsible for Compliance Monitoring?

Compliance monitoring is the responsibility of several key roles within an organisation:

1. Employees: All employees play a role in compliance by following organisational policies, reporting violations and participating in compliance training. Their involvement is crucial in fostering a culture of compliance.
2. Senior Management: Senior management, including the CEO and CFO, drives compliance by setting the tone at the top. They support compliance initiatives, ensure policies align with regulations, and address any issues identified in compliance reports.
3. Department Heads and Managers: Managers ensure their teams comply with policies and procedures. They oversee daily operations, implement compliance measures and report any non-compliance issues to the compliance department.
4. Internal Audit: Internal auditors independently assess compliance practices. They evaluate the effectiveness of monitoring systems, identify gaps and recommend improvements to strengthen compliance controls.
5. Compliance Officers/Compliance Department: Compliance officers and their teams lead compliance monitoring efforts. They develop, implement, and oversee compliance programs, conduct audits, and ensure the organisation follows relevant laws and regulations.

These roles work together to ensure compliance monitoring is thorough, continuous and effective in keeping the organisation aligned with regulatory and ethical standards.

How Can ComplyPortal Help You?

ComplyPortal is a user-friendly application equipped with integrated workflow capabilities that automate scheduling, notifications, approval processes, thereby enhancing the efficiency of your compliance monitoring tasks. Designed by compliance specialists, this compliance management system moves away from the complexities of spreadsheets, email approvals, and shared drives for managing critical documents. It streamlines your regulatory compliance management, making it more effective and efficient.

Key Features of ComplyPortal:

• Cloud-Based Platform: Access a full suite of compliance modules anywhere, anytime.
• Extensive Template Library: Choose from a wide range of compliance monitoring templates or use your own.
• Customisable: Adapt the platform to fit your firm’s unique needs.
• Responsive Support: Benefit from a tenured and highly responsive client support team.
• Efficiency Realisation: Implement ComplyPortal to realise efficiencies in your regulatory compliance processes.

ComplyPortal’s client service team will work closely with you to ensure successful implementation. Whether you select from our extensive library of compliance monitoring templates or prefer to provide your own, ComplyPortal is flexible and adaptable to your specific requirements.

ograms, conduct audits, and ensure the organisation follows relevant laws and regulations.

To out more about how the ComplyPortal platform can help firms adapt to new regulatory expectations at: https://complyportal.uk/modules/

About ComplyPortal:

First developed in 2011 by compliance professionals for compliance officers, ComplyPortal offers workflow, automation, and several modules to help firms with control and regulatory compliance monitoring. 

ComplyPortal simplifies financial services regulatory compliance management on an easy-to-use cloud-based comprehensive compliance platform. It enables compliance officers, risk officers and senior management to keep track of their firm’s regulatory responsibilities and workflows. Our platform includes the following modules, among others: 

• Monitoring: a year-round schedule pre-populated with monitoring questionnaires to ease compliance processes.
• Approvals: authorise request and keep track of workflows
• Registers: lists controlled by the Compliance officer, but easy for staff to view.
• Risk: map and control risk areas to effectively identify and manage risk for your firm.
• Training: access our LMS platform for all Compliance and Governance Training

CLICK HERE TO GET STARTED!

Find out more about how ComplyPortal’s Approvals module can make your firms approval processes more efficient and compliant.

All organisations must manage and control approval processes efficiently to avoid becoming a bottleneck in daily operations. Time is money and juggling multiple approval requests with the added challenge of remote work environments is no mean feat. With the tightening and introducing of new regulations, such as the FCA’s new Approval Gateway for Financial Promotions, and with the new Consumer Duty now in full effect for regulated firms, having a transparent and simple approval process with a full audit trail is now vital. Tracking approvals through traditional methods like email is increasingly difficult or even impossible given the volume and complexity of business needs today.

Read on for more information about how our software makes managing and reporting Approvals much easier.

Who is it for: All staff required to submit for approval, compliance officers and senior management responsible for granting approvals.

Key features:

• Ready-to-use registers for Gifts and Inducements, Incident Reports, Personal Account Dealing, Conflict Checks, Broker Onboarding, and Financial Promotions
• Route requests to defined individuals or groups for approval
• Easily fit to bespoke workflow for multiple approval levels
• Notifications and alerts to make sure approval requests are reviewed and signed off efficiently
• Robust audit trail for ease of demonstrating compliance
• Option to add bespoke registers specific to your organisation’s needs
• Straightforward layout and operation for ease of use

How it benefits you:

Keeping accurate, easily accessible, and organised records of transaction approvals is an important element of compliance management. This not only creates clear audit trails for the regulator, but also helps keep your internal operations running smoothly by promoting transparency and ease of access within your own organisation. Making compliance concepts and processes more understandable and accessible helps to create a culture of compliance throughout your whole organisation.

The Compliance Perspective:

Regulations and good corporate governance require personnel to seek approval for various actions from Compliance or other senior people.

Regulators will check whether the approval request is clear, what time it was submitted, by whom, what was requested, who approved it and why, whether any changes were required and the time of approval. Therefore, making sure that you have clear records of approvals, and any declinatures, is crucial.

“Recording such information on paper or elsewhere is prone to errors. As such, having a dedicated tool to assist with meeting regulatory expectations is a powerful resource for regulated firms.” – Simon Chapman, Director at Complyport

Find out more about our Monitoring module and the rest of the ComplyPortal platform at: https://complyportal.uk/modules

About ComplyPortal – Compliance software since 2011:

First developed in 2011 by compliance professionals for compliance officers, ComplyPortal offers workflow, automation, and several modules to help firms with control and regulatory compliance monitoring.

ComplyPortal simplifies financial services regulatory compliance management on an easy-to-use cloud-based comprehensive compliance platform. It enables compliance officers, risk officers and senior management to keep track of their firm’s regulatory responsibilities and workflows. Our platform includes the following modules, among others:

• Monitoring: a year-round schedule pre-populated with monitoring questionnaires to ease compliance processes.
• Registers: lists controlled by the Compliance officer, but easy for staff to view.
• Risk: map and control risk areas to effectively identify and manage risk for your firm.
• Training: access our LMS platform for all Compliance and Governance Training

CLICK HERE TO GET STARTED!

Consumer Duty is a significant regulatory requirement for UK financial services firms and their day-to-day operations. It is coming up to one year since the Consumer duty deadline for open products and fast approaching is the closed products deadline on 31^st July 2024. Whilst deadlines often represent the end of something, this is not the case. Consumer Duty requirements are here to stay and need to be adhered to for the foreseeable future.

ComplyPortal has made available several tools to help clients meet key requirements and support your firms ongoing compliance with both open and closed products:

1. Consumer Duty Policies and Papers:
   • Consumer Duty Diagnostic Assessment
   • Consumer Duty Annual Report
   • Consumer Duty Monitoring
   • Fair Value Assessment Policy (Open Products)
   • Product Assessment Policy ( Open Products)

2. Consumer Duty Readiness Assessment (Open Products):

If your firm still needs to identify gaps in your Consumer Duty, then take ComplyPortal’s Consumer Duty Readiness Assessment where our regulatory consultants have prepared questions and scoring to guide you through assessing your readiness.

Our assessment is broken up into 7 scoring questionnaires covering the following:

1. Corporate Governance
2. Customer Identification
3. Existing Products and Services
4. New Products and Services
5. Price and Value
6. Consumer Understanding and Support
7. Staff Training

3. New Consumer Duty Questionnaire (Open & Closed Products):

Detailed, relevant and specific regulatory information available via Monitoring module within ComplyPortal Software.

This questionnaire covers the following topics: Manufacturing, Distribution, Fair Value, Communications with Retail Customers, Delivering good outcomes, Sale and purchase of Product books.

4. Ongoing Monitoring & Reporting Capacity (Open & Closed Products):

ComplyPortal provides a full suite of Compliance support modules all in one platform, aiding the pursuit of more efficient and complete compliance processes.

Monitoring questionnaires are created by our in house expert consultants however, custom questionnaires can also be integrated.

Tasks can be assigned to individuals or groups with custom schedules and email reminders to ensure responsibilities and kept up with and on time.

• Monitoring
• Approvals
• Registers
• Attestations
• Documents
• Prompt
• Risk
• SM&CR

To see how these tools can support your Consumer Duty compliance, or how our full suite of modules can assist your wider compliance needs, Book a Demo.

About ComplyPortal:

First developed in 2011 by compliance professionals for compliance officers, ComplyPortal offers workflow, automation, and several modules to help firms with control and regulatory compliance monitoring. 

ComplyPortal simplifies financial services regulatory compliance management on an easy-to-use cloud-based comprehensive compliance platform. It enables compliance officers, risk officers and senior management to keep track of their firm’s regulatory responsibilities and workflows. Our platform includes the following modules, among others: 

• Monitoring: a year-round schedule pre-populated with monitoring questionnaires to ease compliance processes.
• Approvals: authorise request and keep track of workflows
• Registers: lists controlled by the Compliance officer, but easy for staff to view.
• Risk: map and control risk areas to effectively identify and manage risk for your firm.
• Training: access our LMS platform for all Compliance and Governance Training

The FCA has proposed a significant number of changes that will have an impact on regulatory policy with many of these changes forming elements of the government’s wider Edinburgh Reforms.

ComplyPortal recently hosted a brunch where Complyport facilitated a session highlighting some of the key areas of change and how these changes can impact firms.

We have gathered some questions and insights from this event that your organisation may want to consider if you haven’t already.

Consumer Duty

The FCA unveiled the Consumer Duty, a new set of rules intended to enhance consumer protection within retail markets and minimize the amount of harm to retail consumers.

In 2021, the FCA issued two consultation papers, and on 27 July 2022 the FCA released its finalised guidance that incorporated the vast majority of its proposals from those consultations. Firms must adhere to the rules for open products and services by the end of July 2023, and for closed books of business by July 2024.

Taking this into account, Richard presented the following considerations to guests in attendance:

• Have you evidenced your plan and implementation?– A solid implementation plan should consider the following areas: define the end state target for gap assessment, consider how the elements of consumer duty come together, evidence outcomes and review products and services to meet higher standards.
• Have you read FCA’s areas of focus for firms implementing the Consumer Duty? – Upon reviewing a sample of implementation plans, the FCA has found that many firms have shown a thorough understanding and embrace the shift towards delivering good customer outcomes that the Duty will entail. But the FCA has also found that some firms are further behind in their planning and may be at risk to apply the Duty effectively once the rules come into force.
• Have you read the sector-specific “Dear CEO” letter recently issued by FCA? – From February 2023, the FCA rolled out sector-specific letters to CEOs as part of its publication of information and assistance in relation to the Consumer Duty.

The extensive proposals will oblige firms to assess their suite of products, communication practices, and the entire customer journey, as well as to contemplate modifications in various areas including governance and accountability, management information and reporting, product design, pricing, distribution, service delivery, and staff training.

Financial Promotions

The FCA released a consultation paper titled “Introducing a Gateway for Firms that Endorse Financial Promotions” on December 6, 2022. The consultation paper outlines the FCA’s proposed framework for implementing a new gateway, which would mandate that firms seeking to continue approving financial promotions for unauthorised individuals must first seek permission to do so.

At present, according to S21 of the Financial Services and Markets Act (FSMA), authorised firms bear the responsibility of guaranteeing that financial promotions comply with FCA regulations. These regulations include the stipulation that promotions must be transparent, impartial, and devoid of any misleading information, and that they must be either (i) promoted from an authorised firm; (ii) approved by an authorised firm; or (iii) it benefits from an exemption.

The Financial Services and Markets Bill (the Bill) will introduce changes to the S21 regime. Among these changes is a new regulatory gateway for S21 approvals, which will be established through an amendment to FSMA. The FCA intends to set up the gateway as soon as the legislation is passed.

With The Gateway on the horizon, Richard asserted “S21 approvers wanting to carry on this activity will likely need to submit a Variation of Permissions application later on this year.”

For now, we must stay tuned to see how this Bill progresses and how it will be implemented in its’ final form.

SMCR

The Senior Managers and Certification Regime (SMCR) was first implemented for banks in 2016

across the banking sector and PRA-designated investment firms. SMCR replaced the previous Approved Persons Regime (APER). Later, in December 2018, insurers were also included under the SMCR. Then, in December 2019, the scope of the SMCR was further extended to encompass FCA-solo-regulated firms.

SMCR was established in order to drive further responsibility and accountability within the UK finance industry, thus driving greater individual responsibility, behaviour and corporate governance within firms.

Guests in attendance were keen to understand “what can we expect to see from the review of the SMCR announced by the Chancellor back in December 2022?” At present, clear objectives and possible outcomes from the reviews carried out by regulators and the government are pending.

Firms also asked “is the current regime working well since it was introduced?” SMCR is still a relatively new regime only being introduced in 2018. However, Richard expressed that “greater levels of individual responsibility is a step in the right direction in firm’s undergoing due diligence and corporate governance”.

How Can ComplyPortal Help?

To conclude this session, Richard posed an important question for firms to consider:

“What are some ways of testing your processes?”

ComplyPortal is leading RegTech Software, which is designed by compliance professionals to help regulated firms simplify and digitise their regulatory compliance management in an easy-to-use cloud-based platform. ComplyPortal is assisting firms to prepare for these changes with a built-in assessment to identify gaps for Consumer Duty and Financial Crime programmes. These tools include:

• Our Consumer Duty Readiness Assessment questionnaires
• The management and approval of Financial promotions in ComplyPortal’s approval module
• Our Cloud-based training resources
• And more!

CLICK HERE TO GET STARTED!

About ComplyPortal:

First developed in 2011 by compliance professionals for compliance officers, ComplyPortal offers workflow, automation, and several modules to help firms with control and regulatory compliance monitoring.

ComplyPortal simplifies financial services regulatory compliance management on an easy-to-use cloud-based comprehensive compliance platform. It enables compliance officers, risk officers and senior management to keep track of their firm’s regulatory responsibilities and workflows. Our platform includes the following modules, among others:

• Monitoring: a year-round schedule pre-populated with monitoring questionnaires to ease compliance processes.
• Registers: lists controlled by the Compliance officer, but easy for staff to view.
• Risk: map and control risk areas to effectively identify and manage risk for your firm.
• eKYC solution: perform comprehensive searches, including client identity verification, document authenticity, and more for a comprehensive KYC and AML approach

CLICK HERE TO GET STARTED!

Help maintain accountability within your firm and manage SMCR responsibilities more efficiently.

Since the announcement in December 2022 of the Edinburgh Reforms, accountability, company culture, and governance are three essential elements that regulated firms must strictly monitor. The Senior Managers and Certification Regime (SMCR) is a big part of this and provides a framework for firms to do so throughout their organisation. In practice, this means that firms must regularly assess their Senior Managers and employees with other roles that could “cause significant harm to the firm or its customers” for their suitability, monitor compliance and good conduct across all staff, and be able to demonstrate these activities to the regulator.

What are the SMCR requirements?

SMCR Conduct Rules

• SC1: You must take reasonable steps to ensure that the business of the firm for which you are responsible is controlled effectively.
• SC2: You must take reasonable steps to ensure that the business of the firm for which you are responsible complies with the relevant requirements and standards of the regulatory system.
• SC3: You must take reasonable steps to ensure that any delegation of your responsibilities is to an appropriate person and that you oversee the discharge of the delegated responsibility effectively.
• SC4: You must disclose appropriately any information of which the FCA or PRA would reasonably expect notice.

Digital tools like ComplyPortal’s SM&CR module help firms to abide by these above conduct rules and allocate each of the FCA-prescribed senior management responsibilities to a Senior Manager. Senior Management Functions (SMFs) can easily be assigned to Senior Managers, allowing them to view their assigned responsibilities. ComplyPortal provides a systematic method to track assignment and transfer of individual accountability to better maintain oversight and ensure their firms remain accountable and properly governed.

Who is it for: Compliance Officers and Senior Managers

Key features:

• Create thorough audit trails to demonstrate compliance
• Assign Senior Managers to SMF responsibilities
• Manage responsibilities for Senior Managers and Certified Individuals
• Transfer responsibilities to new individuals
• Provide Senior Managers with oversight and the ability to monitor their area of responsibility
• Upload and attach all relevant documents such as SoR to each Senior Manager
• Create and manage committees
• Assign and schedule out all relevant SM&CR Attestations via our Attestations Module

How it benefits you:

Using a compliance management tool like the SM&CR module simplifies processes of accountability within regulated firms. The ability to assign Senior Management Function (SMF) responsibilities to individuals, attach documents such as SoC to each Senior Manager, and transfer responsibilities to new individuals provides firms with a clear record of accountability and governance. Additionally, ComplyPortal also offers functionality for a Fitness and Propriety questionnaire to support regular assessments of whether or not relevant Senior Managers and Certified Individuals are “fit and proper” for their roles. All available actions produce clear audit trails to demonstrate approvals and responsibilities to the regulator, bringing welcome ease to Senior Managers juggling multiple responsibilities.

The Compliance Perspective:

“While compliance management is often a complex undertaking, managing SMCR compliance does not have to be. Streamlining and centralising processes such as SMF and prescribed responsibilities allocations through dedicated software—instead of, for example, using assorted spreadsheets shared with staff—offers welcome simplicity and security for compliance officers.

This is especially valuable in the new world of work as companies increasingly adopt flexible, hybrid, or fully remote-working practices where reporting lines and responsibilities can become blurred. Staff can be kept up to date with current allocations and their approvals and acceptances can be tracked and recorded regardless of where they work.” – Simon Chapman, Director at Complyport

Find out more about our SM&CR module and the rest of the ComplyPortal platform at: https://complyportal.uk/modules

About ComplyPortal:

First developed in 2011 by compliance professionals for compliance officers, ComplyPortal offers workflow, automation, and several modules to help firms with control and regulatory compliance monitoring.

ComplyPortal simplifies financial services regulatory compliance management on an easy-to-use cloud-based comprehensive compliance platform. It enables compliance officers, risk officers and senior management to keep track of their firm’s regulatory responsibilities and workflows. Our platform includes the following modules, among others:

• Monitoring: a year-round schedule pre-populated with monitoring questionnaires to ease compliance processes.
• Approvals: authorise request and keep track of workflows
• Registers: lists controlled by the Compliance officer, but easy for staff to view.
• Risk: map and control risk areas to effectively identify and manage risk for your firm.
• Training: access our LMS platform for all Compliance and Governance Training

In today’s dynamic financial landscape, the threat of Financial Crime looms larger than ever. Regardless of whether you’re a global conglomerate or a regulated small-scale enterprise, the imperative to combat and forestall Financial Crime is centre stage. This imperative is not solely about financial ramifications; it encompasses a far-reaching spectrum that spans reputational damage, brand erosion, dwindling employee morale, strained business relationships, and the spectre of regulatory reprimand.

Enter the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), wielding its regulatory mandate to ensure that authorised entities shore up their defences against becoming unwitting conduits for Financial Crime. The FCA’s mandate stipulates the establishment of systems and controls that pre-empt the exploitation of financial platforms for nefarious purposes. The litmus test for businesses is their ability to substantiate the deployment of robust governance, effective risk protocols, and comprehensive internal mechanisms, all calibrated to navigate the labyrinth of financial crime risk.

In this arena of unrelenting challenge, ComplyPortal introduces the Financial Crime Benchmarking Programme.

ComplyPortal’s Financial Crime Benchmarking Programme—curated by our in-house compliance experts consists of a series of incisive questionnaires, adeptly engineered to empower organisations in assessing their existing financial crime strategies. The goal: to unearth latent vulnerabilities that warrant immediate attention. This includes:

• Governance: A meticulously designed compass to navigate the intricate terrain of compliance.
• Structure, Accountabilities, and Responsibilities: A blueprint for delineating roles and obligations with precision.
• Risk Assessments: A magnifying lens to potential vulnerabilities.
• Policies and Procedures: Systematic protocols that inoculate against illicit activities.
• Recruitment, Vetting, Training & Awareness: A roadmap for nurturing a workforce that is both vigilant and resilient.
• Oversight, Monitoring & MI: A surveillance mechanism mitigating blind spots.

Acquire Your Financial Crime Advantage Today

For a nominal investment of £795 plus VAT, you can fortify your institution’s financial crime resilience. Upon purchase, you will gain exclusive online access to all six meticulously crafted questionnaires through our ComplyPortal platform. This interface empowers you to seamlessly navigate, diligently complete, meticulously review, and conveniently download your Financial Crime Benchmarking Programme

Elevate your financial crime risk management. Acquire ComplyPortal’s Financial Crime Benchmarking Programme today.

Thank you to all who attended our Compliance Challenges for 2023 Breakfast where Expert Trainer Martin Schofield discussed the challenges regulated firms may be faced with in 2023.

We discussed a range of potential issues, including the outcomes of the FCA Final Notices 2021-22 which revealed alarming statistics criticising policies, risk management frameworks, and training within the financial industry, as summarised below.

Policies:

According to the FCA’s Final Notices for 2021-22, a staggering 100% of the regulated entities examined were found to have policies that were subject to criticism[1], of varying degrees. This highlights a systemic problem within the financial industry and raises concerns about the effectiveness of policy frameworks. The nature and severity of the criticisms may vary, indicating that some firms’ policies require significant improvement while others may only need minor adjustments. Regardless, this blanket criticism calls for a thorough review and revamp of policies across the board.

Risk Management Frameworks:

In addition to criticised policies, the FCA Final Notices also revealed that 54% of regulated entities had risk management frameworks that were deemed inadequate or flawed. Risk management is a crucial aspect of any financial institution, ensuring the identification, assessment, and mitigation of risks that may impact its operations and stakeholders. The high percentage of criticised risk management frameworks raises concerns about the industry’s ability to effectively manage risks, potentially exposing firms and their customers to unnecessary vulnerabilities.

Training:

Training plays a vital role in ensuring that employees are equipped with the necessary skills and knowledge to carry out their roles effectively and ethically. However, the FCA Final Notices for 2021-22 indicated that 45% of the regulated entities examined had training programs that were subject to criticism[1]. This raises concerns about the quality and comprehensiveness of training within the financial industry. Inadequate training can lead to compliance breaches, misconduct, and a lack of awareness regarding regulatory obligations, posing risks to both firms and consumers.

Implications and Recommendations:

The findings from the FCA Final Notices 2021-22 highlight critical areas where improvements are needed within the financial industry. The criticised policies, risk management frameworks, and training programs collectively expose weaknesses that can lead to regulatory non-compliance, financial misconduct, and harm to consumers.

To address these issues, regulatory bodies, financial institutions, and industry professionals must work collaboratively. Recommendations to enhance the effectiveness of policies, risk management frameworks, and training include:

Policy Review and Enhancements: Regulated entities should conduct comprehensive reviews of their policies, identifying gaps and areas of improvement. Close collaboration with regulators and industry peers can help establish best practices and ensure alignment with regulatory requirements.

Robust Risk Management Frameworks: Financial institutions must strengthen their risk management frameworks by implementing robust processes for identifying, assessing, and mitigating risks. Regular risk assessments, scenario planning, and stress testing should be conducted to ensure resilience and adaptability.

Enhanced Training Programs: Firms should invest in comprehensive training programs that cover regulatory requirements, ethical conduct, and risk management practices. Regular training sessions, workshops, and assessments should be implemented to ensure ongoing competence and awareness.

The FCA Final Notices for 2021-22 shed light on concerning issues within the financial industry, highlighting the importance of regulated firms regularly reviewing their policies, frameworks and training to remain compliant and avoid fines.

How Can ComplyPortal Help?

ComplyPortal offers a range of modules to help your firm remain compliant with our Regulatory Compliance Management on an easy-to-use cloud-based platform.

Our Approvals, Attestations and Documents module can be used to aid your firm in ensuring Policies are always up to date, whilst our Risk module can be used to easily identify action points for unmitigated risk and ongoing monitoring. Through LGCA learning platform we can help you meet your training, professional qualification, and regulatory needs with e-learning, live online, and in-person courses and certificates. Get in touch today to find out more. To find out more, book a demo here.

[1] Burnett, C. et al. (2022) ‘FCA AND PRA ENFORCEMENT ACTION TRENDS AND PREDICTIONS’, PLC Magazine. Available at: practicallaw.com/w-034-1498.

July 2023 marked the coming of the New Consumer Duty coming into force for all new and existing products and services available.

The FCA has stated their approach will be to prioritise the most serious of breaches, and act swiftly and assertively where it finds evidence of harm, or risk of harm to consumers, so it is imperative to act accordingly.

An FCA survey showed that a lot of the firms in the sections covered believed they were on track to fully implement the new Consumer Duty on time. However, there was still work to be done for 23% of the firms surveyed.

The results also showed that retail finance providers and debt advice firms scored significantly lower than other firms on engagement, understanding, and implementation progress. Due to these findings, the FCA have issued further direct communications to these firms and is working with industry bodies to help amplify messages.

The FCA has also stated that Firms that have not been taking the Duty seriously and are a long way from meeting its requirements must make strenuous efforts in the next month to accelerate their implementation work. These firms must prioritise work that is likely to have the greatest impact on consumer outcomes.

If your firm still needs to identify gaps in your Consumer Duty, then take ComplyPortal’s Consumer Duty Readiness Assessment where our regulatory consultants have prepared questions and scoring to guide you through assessing your readiness. Our assessment is broken up into 7 scoring questionnaires covering the following:

1. Corporate Governance
2. Customer Identification
3. Existing Products and Services
4. New Products and Services
5. Price and Value
6. Consumer Understanding and Support
7. Staff Training

Our readiness assessment is just the start though. Our expert consultants at Complyport are helping to make sure that firms are compliant with the Consumer Duty, with support including:

• High-level Consumer Duty Assessment Report- Using our online assessment tool, Complyport will undertake a review of your firm and provide a report of where it is with its Vulnerable Customer Management (“VCM”) and Consumer Duty implementation.
• Ongoing support- Complyport can also provide firms with support now, and on an ongoing basis, to ensure full compliance with PS22/9. Our ongoing support services including Policy review and authoring, SM&CR advice, reviews of product offerings and Financial Promotions and more

Find out more by visiting our website or book a demo today.