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Compliance officers facing diverse pressures, says study

Dubai, March 16, 2014

More than 50 per cent of the compliance officers feel that their personal liability has increased, said a study  highlighting the diverse pressures which compliance functions continue to face.

It was conducted by Thomson Reuters, the world’s leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals.

According to the survey, this perceived increase in personal liability may be a contributing factor of costs associated with senior compliance officers continuing to escalate.

It also highlighted the diverse pressures which compliance functions continue to face, with shifting supervisory expectations, no let-up in the volume of regulatory change and the start of many of the big implementation programs for major complex legislation.

Thomson Reuters had surveyed more than 600 compliance practitioners from financial services firms including banks, brokers, insurers and asset managers across 71 countries covering Africa, the Americas, Asia, Australia, Europe and the Middle East.

The Key findings of the annual 'Cost of Compliance' survey revealed that:

•Majority of the compliance officers (53 per cent) now feel that their personal liability has increased; a reflection of increased focus on senior individuals at the supranational level.
•66 per cent of respondents expect the cost of senior compliance professionals to increase in 2014.
•75 per cent of respondents expect an increase in the amount of information published by regulators.
•Consistent with the previous year, 26 per cent of compliance teams spent less than an hour a week amending reports for the board (26 per cent in 2013).
•Globally, compliance functions again reported spending very little time liaising with the internal audit function, a persistently repeated finding which is a growing cause of concern.
•The number of compliance teams spending more than 10 hours a week tracking and analyzing regulatory developments has nearly doubled in both the US (13 per cent in 2013 and 25 per cent in 2014) and the Middle East (8 per cent in 2013 and 18 per cent in 2014).

“The ability to comply with confidence and transparency is integral to building trust in the financial services sector,”remarked Chris Perry, the managing director of Risk, Thomson Reuters.

"Compliance leaders are being held to increased accountability amidst an ever-increasing volume of regulation, the expectation to move and comply fast, and the exposure to record fines for non-compliance, now regularly totaling in the billions," he explained.

"In these times of heightened scrutiny, it has never been more important that boards support their compliance function and its senior leadership with the budget, resources and tools to help ensure transparency, trust and a lasting change in behaviors throughout firms," he added.-TradeArabia News Service




Tags: pressure | Thomson Reuters | compliance |

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