Now more than ever, compliance and risk teams are challenged to increase the effectiveness of their compliance programs, manage with fewer internal resources, ensure high-quality results, reduce turnaround times, and lower costs.
We provide our clients with solutions to these challenges while delivering value and improved outcomes. Our dedicated team of compliance and risk professionals has a proven record of providing high-quality results in a timely manner for over 1,000 firms globally.
We can can help take manual and time-consuming tasks off your plate, including:
Outsourcing marketing and advertising review allows your firm to significantly reduce the amount of time and resources devoted to the marketing and advertising review process.
Our skilled compliance professionals can step in during periods of high volume or assist your firm with enhancing collateral review workflows and protocols. We will help your firm identify potential business and compliance risks that could lead to problems with your key stakeholders: regulators, clients, and prospective clients.
Investment advisers and broker-dealers must meet various regulatory filings requirements or else face potential monetary penalties and reputational damage. However, the regulatory filings process can be time-consuming and error-prone when done manually in-house.
We combine technology with managed services to provide investment advisers and broker-dealers with a cost-effective, full-service offering designed to help streamline complex reporting requirements, improve data accuracy, and reduce the operational costs related to regulatory filings.
Our regulatory filings specialists can help your firm draft, review, and file applicable filings on your firm’s behalf. We use ACA’s proprietary regulatory reporting platform for most filings to reduce risk and increase operational efficiencies
Our team is available to listen to consultations, document observed inconsistencies with policies and procedures, and provide a report of any findings after the meeting.
A member of our team will join expert network consultations in listen-only mode, on an announced or unannounced basis. We will document the consultation, note inconsistencies, and identify potential compliance risks and violations.
We will provide a written summary report of the consultation in which we highlight aspects that warrant further review. Additionally, we can be available to discuss our findings if necessary.
Electronic Communications
An effective email review program is critical for preventing, among other things, misuse of material non-public information by an adviser or an adviser’s employees. Our team specializes in conducting thorough reviews of electronic communications to help firms meet their regulatory obligations in this area.
Online Presence and Social Media
Many firms are concerned with how their employees use social media or other websites for business purposes, and with the general unknown of what information about the firm or its business dealings is being posted online. Despite that concern, compliance officers may not have the resources necessary to perform periodic, comprehensive reviews of their employees’ online activity. While some firms are able to monitor employee activity on widely known, popular social media sites, they may not be aware of activity on lesser-known websites and social media forums, such as those that are geared toward traders or that focus on investment ideas.
Our team will assist your firm’s compliance department with identifying online activity that could pose compliance or reputational issues for your firm. This service also can assist your firm with addressing regulatory guidance on the use of social media by investment advisers and their employees.
Regulators globally are using cutting-edge technologies to identify potential insider trading, market abuse, and other misconduct, resulting in record-breaking fines and enforcement. Our trade surveillance solutions are designed to help your firm effectively, diligently, and proactively manage its firm-wide and employee trading risk in a way that meets regulatory expectations and industry best practices.
We offer a range of trade surveillance solutions designed to meet your firm’s business needs, including:
Firms that aim to mitigate their regulatory risks, keep pace with industry best practices, and satisfy inquiries from prospective investors increasingly need support to evolve and maintain their anti-money laundering (AML) programs.
Compliance teams globally are tasked with meeting requirements under various Know Your Customer (KYC) and Customer Identification Program (CIP) regulations, or they can face significant fines. In 2019 alone, there were over $8B AML compliance fines globally, and penalties have continued to trend upward since 2015.
Our AML KYC/CIP Solution is designed to assist your firm in developing and implementing effective AML practices that meet industry best practices and comply with applicable laws and regulations in the U.S., Europe, and Cayman Islands. Our solution combines ComplianceAlpha® regulatory technology with managed services to help your firm meet its data screening, ongoing monitoring, remediation, and reporting needs.
The staffing needs for financial services firms are constantly evolving. The ever-changing regulatory landscape combined with the increasing adoption of regulatory technology can make finding and retaining qualified staff with the required proficiencies a challenge for HR departments and recruiters. However, having the proper staffing and supporting resources in place is crucial to maintaining a strong compliance program. Teams that are over-burdened and stretched too thin are more likely to experience burn out and make mistakes.
We can help. Learn more about our staffing and support services.
Kimberly Daly is a Partner leading ACA’s Outsourced Marketing Review team.
Geoffrey A. Hecht, CIPM, is a Partner in ACA's Managed Services division.
Adam Palmer is a London based partner, and head of our European Regulatory Compliance practice.
Outsourcing risk and compliance activities can help firms navigate the future of risk and compliance in the age of RiskMutation™ through better results, increased agility, and scale for less. Get our outsourcing strategic roadmap here.
Business disruption, cybersecurity challenges and greater compliance burdens are well acknowledged operational challenges facing hedge fund, private equity and investment management industries. We examine how COVID-19 has heralded sweeping changes to the way financial services firms operate.
Find out what RiskMutation™ is and why it's accelerating the modernization of risk and compliance management.
There is just one week to go until Regulatory Horizon 2021 | Navigating Evolving Risks, our free-to-attend European based conference for financial services firms is running from 2-4 March. We outline five reasons why this event is worth adding to your calendar.
Former global prime broker and industry consultant joins multi-award-winning regulatory hosting division
ACA Aponix selected as the winner of the Cybersecurity Technology Award by The DrawDown Private Equity Service Provider Awards.
Senior management in Financial Services firms have a responsibility to ensure their employees have sufficient knowledge and understanding of the Regulatory environment they are working in. This knowledge helps in emphasising the need for compliance with policies and procedures in order to protect the firm and the individual from failing to “do the right thing”.
Join us Thursday, March 11 at 11:00 am EST for a live webcast on FINRA Priorities and Hot Topics to learn more about how the recently released priorities may impact you and your compliance program.
The role of the Compliance Officer is a mandatory position in all firms in the Financial Services Industry. They play a major role in assisting Senior Management to ensure that appropriate and effective systems and controls are in place to achieve and maintain compliance with the applicable Rules. While the nature of the Compliance Function is likely to differ from one firm to another, this course provides an easy to follow breakdown of what the Regulator expects of a Compliance Officer and explains, in practical terms how the regulatory expectations and those of Senior Management can be achieved.