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Regulatory Consultant completes large-scale review for a national IFA

FourthLine works with some of the biggest talent within Risk and Regulation. We are currently representing an experienced Regulatory Consultant who has recently completed a large-scale review for a national IFA.

 

The Project

After receiving a letter from the FCA regarding DB advice, the organisation engaged our expert to review a sample of their DB transfers.

They wanted to do this for three reasons, firstly to establish if their past DB transfers would be assessed as “suitable” based on FCA guidance. Secondly, to provide suitability outcomes to their PI insurer, who was reviewing their cover regarding their DB transfers and, finally to determine whether their own compliance checking could be improved to ensure a more consistent and suitable outcome for their client.

The project involved reviewing 10 DB transfers that the firm had carried out since the Pensions Freedom legislation came into force. The review was to take place over a period of 4 days, with our expert as the sole reviewer. They were situated in the organisation’s head office and was granted access to their computer systems and client files. It was their responsibility to not only review the cases and decide on the case outcomes, but to also feed-back the findings daily to key stakeholders in the company.

Due to the time constraints they had to immediately get up to speed with the company’s computer systems, in order to locate the documents and information needed that would allow our expert to review relevant cases.

The risks to the business were two-fold. Without comprehensive findings to report back to the FCA the regulator taking further action towards the company, (i.e. requesting files themselves to review, removing their DB transfer licence). Secondly, if the PI insurer did not receive information on the case outcomes, they may have excluded DB transfers from their insurance, effectively meaning that the business could no longer undertake this type of business. Both of which would have had financial and reputation impacts on the company.

 

The Outcome

Our expert provided a comprehensive outcome document for each case they reviewed. This included a summary, reasons for the outcome grading, as well as recommendations on how the advice could be improved against the compliance checking procedure, to ensure better case outcome in the future.

The outcome of the project was that the business had a review outcome document they could share with the FCA and their PI insurer to provide an indication of the quality of advice being provided by the business.

 

Skills Utilised

  • Extensive experience of conducting similar business reviews, specifically on the FCA ETV DB review
  • With a previous background of working as an IFA, our expert felt they were able to provide a more leveled and unbiased approach to the project

To find out more about this candidate and how FourthLine can provide you with a talent solution to help your business better manage its compliance function, schedule a call using the link below.

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Topics: Insurance Sector

March 16, 2020