Industry confused by compliance: survey
Compliance practices in the financial services industry are usually reactive, and only vaguely regarded as a business benefit, according to a survey of executives from 73 companies across 17 countries including Australia.
The PricewaterhouseCoopers survey, Protecting the brand - the evolving role of the compliance function, found the executives recognised that sound compliance could be a competitive advantage in a society which now expected integrity as well as competence from its financial service providers.
However, most complained it was difficult to take ownership of compliance controls, and there was confusion as to whether the compliance function should be a “policeman, counsellor, independent observer or a combination of them all”, the survey reported.
In a result that would be familiar to Australian practitioners, the executives named the biggest obstacle to effective compliance as the “sheer complexity of regulation” (mentioned by 64 per cent of respondents), followed by “inadequate technological infrastructure for monitoring compliance” (36 per cent), “changing expectations of stakeholders” (33 per cent) and “incomplete acceptance/understanding by the board/senior management of their compliance responsibilities” (31 per cent).
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