SteelEye, a compliance technology and data analytics platform, has announced Senior Manager & Certification Regime (SM&CR) capabilities within the SteelEye platform, helping firms effectively monitor and manage their compliance.
As a key part of Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) strategy for driving change and mitigating risk for consumers and markets, SM&CR should not be taken lightly. In their recent CEO letter, the FCA highlights the key harms that brokerage firms operating in wholesale financial markets pose and urge CEOs to consider their strategy ahead of the SM&CR implementation for all FSMA-authorised firms in December 2019.
For financial firms, this means a requirement to keep up-to-date records of all senior manager roles, documenting the responsibilities they perform as part of their designated senior management function. It also requires firms to conduct an annual assessment of each senior managers’ fitness and propriety, amongst other requirements.
The FCA is committed to working with firms throughout 2019 to ensure they implement the regime in an effective way. However, the FCA will expect firms to demonstrate that they are headed by effective boards operating under appropriate mandates. They will also continue to pursue a broad range of supervisory approaches to drive improvement.
To help firms meet these requirements, SteelEye provide clients with a centralised data platform for monitoring and managing Senior Manager Responsibilities and Roles. ‘Fit and proper’ flags and ‘date of approval’ fields help appropriately tag senior managers in accordance with SM&CR. A ‘Responsibilities map’ allows firms to store and allocate senior management functions.
SteelEye is also equipped with automatic triggers and alerts to remind firms to define new roles and to address the requirement for an ongoing annual assessment of fitness and propriety of each senior manager. Finally, to help firms comply with the Conduct Rules, SteelEye’s Trade and Communications Surveillance provide the tools to monitor business activity, respond to any suspicious activities in a timely manner and build bespoke reports to notify regulators about any disciplinary actions.
Matt Smith (pictured), CEO of SteelEye, says: “By normalising and consolidating data on one platform, SteelEye simplifies the otherwise complex process of proving compliance. By leveraging the SteelEye platform, SM&CR compliance is simplified, and firms gain access to a wide range of regulatory solutions and tools.”
