Governance

“The action or manner of governing a state or organisation” (OED definition of governance)

In the regulated world, governance can take many forms and the regulators’ scrutiny of how firms organise themselves and their activities is becoming more intense.

A firm’s culture has been an ongoing theme for some time; personal responsibility and accountability were brought into sharp focus by the SFC’s Manager In Charge regime in Hong Kong; and the MAS’s new Individual Accountability and Conduct framework (to be implemented by financial institutions by September 2021) brings governance  firmly under the spotlight in Singapore.

Board effectiveness

We can help you meet your organisational requirements – regardless of the sector you’re in or the scale of your activities. You’ll already have a Board or governing body of some description in place, but does it have the right composition; the right calibre of individual on it?

Whatever form it takes, the key question is whether the Board is effective or not:

• Does it provide the right level of challenge to the business?
• Is it receiving timely and accurate MI of the right kind?
• Do its delegated activities function appropriately?
• Is the committee structure right?
• Are the right people in place?
• Do the committee terms of reference enable effective decision-making and escalation to take place?
• And how does risk management and compliance fit into the above?

We can help you answer these and other questions with a Board Effectiveness Review; benchmarking your firm with your peers and seeing how you shape up to the regulators’ expectations.

Governance and culture

Putting your customers first should be at the heart of what you do. Is this culture articulated clearly and is the tone set from the Board down? How do you articulate your firm’s culture? And how do you demonstrate that you are putting customers first?

The monitoring of your conduct activities and the outcomes you are achieving for your clients should give us a good indication.  But have you identified all of your conduct risks? Do you have controls in place to mitigate or manage them? What MI do you generate to prove this to the Board?

If you’d like us to carry out a conduct risk assessment or sound out the culture in your organisation, give us a call. We can also help with applications or notifications to the regulators triggered by any change in governance structure, for example Responsible Officer applications to the SFC.

What else?

There’s plenty more that might be troubling the Board; or there’s plenty more you think should be troubling the Board! Be it remuneration, conflicts or outsourcing – we’ve got the experience to take a look.