We recently held the third training session on regulatory compliance, with the latest edition being an introduction to how regulatory compliance impacts you in your job.  We focussed on your role and the regulatory requirements for us as a business to treat customers fairly(TCF) and to always make decisions that are in the customer’s best interest. The six principles of TCF are:

1.       Consumers can be confident they are dealing with firms where the fair treatment of customers is central to the corporate culture.

2.       Products and services marketed and sold … are designed to meet the needs of identified consumer groups and are targeted accordingly.

3.       Consumers are provided with clear information and are kept appropriately informed before, during and after the point of sale.

4.       Where consumers receive advice, the advice is suitable and takes account of their circumstances.

5.       Consumers are provided with products that perform as firms have led them to expect, and the associated service is of an acceptable standard and as they have been led to expect.

6.       Consumers do not face unreasonable post-sale barriers imposed by firms to change product, switch provider, submit a claim or make a complaint.

Each of these principles will effect most of our staff in some way or other. For some (our Compliance Managers and File Review Team) their role is to establish that advisers are complying with all of these. For others, you may only be involved in one or two.  We believe we have a team of people who will always make decisions that are in the interests of customers and to ensure we are acting fairly at all times. If you ever feel that you are being asked to do something that you feel is improper, or compromises your beliefs/ethics in any way then speak to your manager. If your manager is the problem, speak to myself or Tania. If we are the problem, speak to Adam.

We also covered Data Protection and the requirements for how we deal with data. From a practical point of view we need to ensure that the we…

  • Lock computers when going away from the desk for a long period of time (meetings, lunch, etc.)
  • Do not leave files with personal data on desks at the end of the working day – they should be in a lockable cabinet
  • Use the shredder for documents with personal or sensitive data
  • In the rare occurrence of speaking directly to a customer, make sure that you identify them by asking ‘security questions’, for example date of birth, postcode and something only they would be likely to know, e.g. a reference number, the name of the adviser they are dealing with
  • Do not put rude or offensive comments about individuals in Zoho or internal emails, as the customer has a right to see all information held about them

The slides from this presentation and the previous sessions are available in the staff info folder: S:\_Staff Info\Staff Training\Regulatory Compliance Series

The next session will be scheduled for Wednesday 28th October and will include:

  • Anti Money Laundering
  • Anti-Bribery
  • Fraud and Financial Crime