Compliance audits

The FCA has been clear on the outcomes it expects, not least through letters to CEOs which outline its supervisory strategy. How you go about delivering those outcomes is up to you.

An independent review of your compliance programme can give you peace of mind, avoid costly oversights and demonstrate to the regulator you’re taking obligations seriously.

We offer a wide range of compliance audits and reviews, from health checks to assess and improve your approach through to formal assurance programmes suitable for investor due diligence.

Because we’ve supported hundreds of firms over the years, we’re able to benchmark performance accurately, ensuring your compliance programme is effective and proportionate to your size and activities.

A thorough compliance review with practical recommendations

Whether you’re reviewing your current approach or assessing your ability to conduct new regulated activities, we can carry out an independent review of your compliance and risk management approach, assessing your:

• governance, risk management and resourcing
• systems and controls
• policies and procedures
• conduct and culture.

We don’t just assess your approach and share our findings, we pride ourselves on giving detailed, practical recommendations to help you get straight to work implementing improvements.

Our approach

While all our compliance audits are tailored to individual firms and proportionate to their risk profile, we typically approach these in three stages:

Establishing what ‘good’ looks like
Understanding your activities, regulatory permissions and obligations before reviewing them against best practice and similar firms.

Conducting a gap analysis
A thorough review of your processes and procedures, and testing their effectiveness in your day-to-day operations, including interviews with people across the business, from senior management to junior conduct staff.

Providing clear recommendations and implementation plans
For each area assessed, we’ll provide a clear, practical overview of our key recommendations and develop an implementation plan to ensure good practice and obligations are met.

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