Compliance Advisor

My advantages – experience, independence and up-to-date knowledge

The experience I have gained in many companies and projects allows me to realistically assess project plans and timelines and to quickly and reliably identify critical points. I help my clients to understand and structure regulatory requirements in all its complexity and to weight it according to the business focus.

In a project I am on the one hand involved in the given hierarchies and thus bound to decisions. However, on the other hand, customers appreciate my independence from the internal power structure. They engage me as an external compliance consultant and can expect me to assess the situation from an external perspective and to use my experience and independence to identify and clearly name risks.

In view of the constant stream of regulatory innovations, it is of course not easy to keep up to date on all issues. Learning and developing new topics is therefore an ongoing process and is also shaped by the specific requirements of a project. My own constantly growing database on supervisory law helps me in this, as do online training courses, seminars and self-study. Learning never stops!

Making compliance efficient

The compliance function is highly valued by regulators. Compliance is their extended arm, enabling them to intervene promptly and directly in the internal processes of a financial services provider. Compliance is closer to the day-to-day business and delivers findings far earlier than an internal audit can. In addition, compliance is partly directly integrated into operational processes and can therefore also act preventively. Consequently, it is constantly being assigned new tasks, whether in the form of monitoring or reporting obligations. No project can take place without the involvement of Compliance.

This leads to a sharp rise in costs and financial service providers must constantly consider how to deal with this. It is neither possible nor advisable to ignore or circumvent compliance requirements; the costs associated with them are part of the “cost of doing business”.

While in some places institutions have the freedom to opt for more staff, more automated monitoring and/or outsourcing of certain functions, all variants are costly. If external audits or official monitoring reveal the absence or poor functioning of the compliance organisation, the institute is threatened with heavy fines and public “naming and shaming”. The responsible Compliance Officer may be held liable for breach of his or her guarantor obligation and may be held personally liable.

Institutions must therefore regularly reconsider how they can meet the compliance requirements on the one hand and work profitably on the other. This is where I come in as a compliance advisor and provide support in these considerations: