Every financial institution, regardless of their size, needs to comply with an extensive set of regulations. In the UK, these companies have to be registered with and follow strict guidelines from the FCA. This is what keeps the market and its consumers safe, preventing the entry of unprepared players and the spread of unethical business practices.
However, as much as regulations are necessary, being fully compliant requires a lot of effort and attention to detail. There are so many moving parts in a company and making sure they’re all working together in compliance is not an easy task, no matter how big or small an organisation is. Furthermore, news spreads like wildfire in social media these days, meaning that a misstep can mar one of the most precious assets owned by a company, their reputation.
While their individual challenges to get there may vary, Tier 1 banks and FinTechs have one common goal: maintain their reputation and protect their customers, while achieving business goals. Making sure that their workforce is compliant requires the creation and maintenance of internal policies, procedures and guidelines. It also entails guaranteeing that their teams are cognisant and adhere to these policies.
Taking a closer look at their individual struggles:
- Tier 1 bank, Barclays, had a cloud-based, digital policy management solution in place, to help them deal with a high volume of documents and keep abreast of any change requirements. With hybrid and remote work relationships becoming the new normal, they needed to review how they were distributing their policies and procedures to their global workforce.
- Brand new FintTech, Griffrin, had a clean slate at establishing internal policies, but needed agility to allow their small compliance team to focus on high-value tasks, instead of spending efforts in time-sucking administrative activities. They needed everything in place to proceed with their request for a banking licence, as well as the ability to adjust policies as often as needed, in order to adapt to the ever-changing scenario of a high-growth startup.
- PensionBee, a FinTech looking to prepare for an IPO, needed to put together and review a multitude of documents. With a very small team in place and looking to achieve efficiencies, while focusing on their core business, it was of essence to find a way to streamline and automate the policy lifecycle. They also wanted to be ready to scale up with automated, swift compliance processes, once they were listed in the London Stock Exchange.
These three companies, with different profiles, reached the common conclusion that an investment in policy management and distribution technology would help them comply and achieve their particular business objectives, in a cost effective, scalable way:
- Barclays, who was more advanced into their policy management maturity journey, with a robust, cloud-based, policy management tool in place, decided it was time to invest in a smarter way to distribute documents to their entire global workforce. They came to the decision to implement a Policy Portal solution. You can learn more about their case study here.
- Griffin chose to be prepared from an early stage and onboarded policy management technology at the beginning of their journey as a company. This will provide them agility to comply and expand their business and create a competitive advantage from the very start. These preparations will allow them to be seen as a reliable, compliant company by the market, and will be able to pivot their strategies much quicker than other companies of similar profile, who will rely on manual, time-consuming and, quite often, not as effective, processes to achieve compliance requirements.
- PensionBee adopted a solution that enables their team to edit and collaborate on documents in real-time, with a full audit trail of any changes made. To be fully prepared for growth, they have also adopted the Policy Portal, that provides their entire, growing team, access to the most up-to-date policies and procedures, with built-in attestation for full compliance demonstration. Learn more.
Where does your organisation stand in their policy management journey? Have you given it any thought at all? If you’re looking for more food for thought on the topic, here are some free resources I’d recommend:
- 8 reasons to invest in a policy management platform today
- Webinar: Managing compliance risks to avoid fines and reputational damage, on 19th April
- PensionBee’s CEO explains why they decided to invest in a policy management platform
Are you ready to talk about it? Drop me a line at carol.lemos@clausematch.com and I can hook you up with our team of experts to discuss the best option for your needs.
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