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is a fact of life that all regulated companies must
have a set of documented compliance procedures.
This is one of the first documents that a regulator
will ask for as part of an audit. It is essential
that all employees can access compliance procedures
but also that these procedures are kept up to date.
However just having procedures does not guarantee
compliance. Staff need to understand the procedures,
and be able to use them on a day to day basis in
an effective manner. It is often worse having a
set of procedures that no-one uses or that are out
of date instead of not having any procedures in
place at all. Compliance
manuals normally give overviews of FSA principles
and rules but for these manuals to be effective
they should also include user friendly operational
guidance notes on how staff need to actually comply.
This may relate to client compliance issues or
issues that arise for all employees of regulated
firms. In certain areas, this may include having
appropriate checklists that have to be
used to ensure that your firm can evidence easily
to the regulator that you are complying with the
rules.
Gem Compliance can review
your existing procedures to ensure that these
are effective and up to date or for newly regulated
companies, we can design compliance procedures
from the start. We can continually review the
procedures to ensure that they are accessible,
easy to use but do achieve the evidence that the
regulator will look for.
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