Never A Dull Moment In The Life Of Regulatory And Compliance Executive!

Bermuda scored a major coup in bringing the annual symposium to Bermuda for the first time because the event has historically been held in the Cayman Islands.

The RCA, as an international non-profit organization, supports a community of 78,000 professionals, graduate students, firms and governmental authorities. Annually, over 18,000 professionals use RCA curricula to improve their knowledge base and skills. Chartered as a graduate level institution, the RCA helps to protect investors and financial markets by delivering accredited, post-secondary education in asset management.

This year’s attendees of the symposium learnt how to mitigate the risks caused by the latest enforcement initiatives, upgrade compliance procedures, controls, testing and annual review, and address the 2015 regulatory examination priorities and tactics. Ultimately the event provided a fascinating insight into the latest developments in the industry.

My objective at the symposium was to focus minds on cybersecurity and how Fifth Step can provide outsourced Chief Information Security Officer services to ensure compliance and to mitigate the risks that the industry faces.

I also spoke on the 21st of April at the Bermuda Insurance Institute about the impact of Solvency II on IT and the role of the CIO and other Senior Management.

As I have mentioned previously, global regulation is placing a major strain on IT and compliance issues are a key boardroom challenge across multiple sectors whether it’s banking, accounting or insurance. So on arriving back in the UK I was interested to read the latest issue of the Lloyd’s Market Association newsletter Viewpoint which carried a report on Lloyd’s Risk Minimum Standards.

According to the report, Managing agents need to start planning Conduct Management Information (‘MI’) collection now to meet Lloyd’s Conduct Risk Minimum Standards by the 1 January 2016 deadline.

The LMA is advising its members that the collection of conduct management information to meet Lloyd’s Conduct Risk Minimum Standards is going to be challenging and managing agents should ensure this is prioritised. In addition to Lloyd’s requirements, the FCA continues to develop proposals that could increase data collection and reporting for UK personal lines products, including enhanced complaints ‘contextualisation’ and the publication of claims ratios.

Never a dull moment in the life of a Compliance officer is there these days? Luckily, companies like Fifth Step are on hand to offer advice on how technology can significantly reduce the burden on overworked regulatory and compliance teams whether they are based in London, New York or Bermuda, operating in insurance or hedge funds, the challenges are often surprisingly similar.