Wealth & Finance International - Wealth & Money Management Awards 2016

www.wealthandfinance-intl.com 11 employees can feel they have the support of another colleague, while clients know they will always have an adviser available.” “Although staff may have a particular area of expertise, we enable them to work with a variety of clients so that they are constantly challenged and intellectually stimulated by their work. It also means they have to be technically astute across a wide range of regulatory requirements.” “Alongside this, personal development is important to our firm and is widely encouraged. Any member of staff who would like to undertake additional training or improve a skill is supported and individuals have the opportunity to conduct research and cultivate new technical knowl- edge because, ultimately, this means that they will be better placed to support our clients.” Adam, who has worked in the UK regulated financial services industry since 2001, has seen many changes in the industry throughout his career. Looking to the future, he believes that the market will continue to evolve and grow, providing exciting new opportunities for ACA. “When I started working in this industry, compliance was not a key focus, both in the media and the industry itself. Since then the financial market has evolved, and now you cannot open a financial publication without reading several compliance stories, and firms have come to view compliance as a vital aspect of their operations.” “This increased focus has led to clients, expecting much more from their advisors, and quite rightly our clients expect the highest possi- ble service with deep technical understanding. We have to be able to articulate the impact of the relevant regulatory regimes to our clients in a straightforward and practical manner.” “Therefore, we are constantly innovating and exploring new opportu- nities to better support our clients. We analyse the market and aim to produce new solutions and services that will meet the needs of the businesses working within the regulated financial market, so that they are safe in the knowledge that ACA is able to support them no matter what the challenge.” These innovations include new technological solutions, which Adam was keen to emphasise are not designed to replace compliance officers, but rather to enhance their role and enable them to better support their clients. “Following on from the financial crisis of 2008, regulators have become more proactive, producing additional regulations and rules to cover new areas, with a key focus on areas such as transparency, governance, market conduct and risk. Additionally, new regulations often have a vast and far-reaching impact, and as such forward planning is also of increasing importance, both to our clients and our staff.” “In order to support clients through this ever-evolving and increas- ingly complex regulatory landscape we are working to develop new technological offerings, such as our ComplianceAlpha software. This technology is designed to ensure that our client’s compliance officers, whose role is vast and continually expanding, have a solution that will help them to monitor and control their firm’s compliance programme. The appropriate use of technology should not replace the compliance officer but it can free up their time and allow them to focus on the firm’s key regulatory risks — this can only be a positive development. This is one of the directions that our firm is expanding into as we look to offer a greater range of innovative technological solutions.”