Moving your Certification Regime into BAU for Investment Management Firms

A half-day course for those individuals within firms charged with the responsibility of managing an effective Certification Regime within BAU. This training has been developed to help Investment Management firms successfully transition from project implementation into dealing with the regulatory issues and challenges the on-going management of an effective Certification Regime brings.

The FCA places great importance on the competence and integrity of individuals who operate within Financial Services. Following the introduction of the SM&CR for solo regulated firms, it is critical organisations can evidence both to themselves and to the regulator that they are taking the competence of their employees seriously and they can evidence the basis on which those decisions were made.

This course will allow firms to discuss and consider emerging best practice around the on-going management of Certification. It will consider the on-going challenge of integrating a variety of competence measures into a wider Certification Programme, together with what the appropriate sign-off and approvals processes should be.

This session is highly interactive and will allow delegates to receive technical and regulatory input which will be followed by syndicate work and debate to consider and embed learning.

Key Learning Objectives

• Consider the current position in relation to recent Certification related deadlines
• Consider firms recent Certification Regime implementation and discuss and debate the effectiveness of approach
• Discuss and debate how the “evidence” of employee competence gathered provided you with the data to effectively certify your teams
• Consider the approaches firms have taken in order to build the components parts of their Fitness & Propriety Assessments
• Consider how effective the MI generated through your processes has been in providing assurance to your relevant Senior Manager(s)

14:00 Introductions & Objectives of the session and delegates

14:15 Your Certification Regimes – Current Position

• Recent deadlines – were they met? If not, what remediation can you plan in
• What are the known concerns with Certification Regime’s based on existing regulatory feedback
• What has the regulator said about the banking regime and issues arising in their implementations?

14:30 Your Certification Regime under the microscope

• Brief recap of the key rules around Certification Regimes
• Policy & procedures with regards to Certification – what does the regulator expect
• People rule books and satisfying different regulatory requirements
• The Directory Connection
• SYNDICATE EXERCISE 1

15.15 – TEA/COFFE BREAK - ALL

15:25 Fitness & Propriety

• The component parts from a regulatory perspective
• Who owns what and what advantages/disadvantages have you found to this
• What evidence did you gather – different evidence for differing elements of F & P?
• What future Certification cycles are you planning and how have you embedded this in your people processes?
• What might a good sign off process look like and what is emerging industry practices

SYNDICATE EXERCISE 2

16:05 Conduct Rules & Conduct Rule Breaches - Implications

• Recent regulatory observations
• What am I recording and who needs to know?
• The impact of conduct rules breaches on competence assessments
• Developing conduct rules programmes that deliver business and conduct improvements

SYNDICATE EXERCISE 3

16:40 MI Oversight and Record Keeping

• Satisfying the SM with accountability for Certification
• What data have they asked for, what have you given them, and does it tell them what they need?
• How do they satisfy themselves of the individual(s) team(s) competence in which to run the process(es)
• What evidence might they typically want in order to demonstrate “Reasonable Steps”

17:00 Summary & Close

• Summarise key learning points
• Review any outstanding items
• Close session

17:15 Close session

Lynne Hargreaves

Lynne Hargreaves has been providing regulatory advisory support to the Financial Services industry for a number of years. Lynne specialises in the interpretation of FCA regulation and the impact on people. This includes the design and development of training & competence frameworks, the Senior Managers and Certification Regime (SM&CR), managing conduct risk, MiFID II and developing culturally aligned pragmatic policies and processes. With a proven track record in operational HR and L&D Lynne recognises the need to ensure solutions are easy to understand and effective.

Lynne has provided consultancy support on T&C scheme design and implementation, diversity and inclusion, the EU Insurance Distribution and Mortgage Credit Directives, Conduct Risk development, HR performance management practices, target operating models and the design of associated training.

Lynne has over 20 years’ experience in Financial Services within a variety of roles in the Retail sector before moving into the world of consulting. The range of senior roles included Sales, T&C, L&D and Operational Leadership. During this time Lynne was responsible for successfully delivering a range of key regulatory initiatives including a strategic Group T&C Programme, SM&CR, S166 remedial actions and the Mortgage Market and Retail Distribution Reviews to name but a few!

IA Member £395.00 +VAT
Non-Member £545.00 +VAT

Pay using a credit card online, or if you wish to be invoiced please email your full details to: Training@theia.org

PLEASE NOTE: Full payment for the course must be made prior to the course commencement date.

• Any cancellation must be made in writing.
• For all cancellation received 15-30 days prior to the course start date, 50% of the course fee is still payable.
• No refund is given for a cancellation made 14 days or less prior to the commencement of a course.
• Transferring from one course to another is treated as a cancellation.
• You can substitute one delegate for another at no additional cost. In this instance, please give two business days’ notice.

Hybrid Training Courses:
We will continue to monitor and follow government guidance regarding coronavirus (Covid-19) to ensure the safety of our team and our members. Please be advised some training courses could change from hybrid delivery (being held in-person and virtually) to solely virtual delivery, should government guidance require.

There are a limited number of in-person spaces available on this course and this will be allocated on a first come first served basis.