ABSTRACT
Compliance in financial services can be summed up in a number of words: being trustworthy; possessing ‘authority’, competence and professionalism; being a good interlocutor and communicator; having imagination; taking a customer-centric perspective and always being persistent. Compliance has been hampered in the past by a number of failings within its own arrangements and thinking. There is a strong risk that compliance staff may over-concentrate on the technical aspects of the regulations without understanding the full purpose of the requirements. Whistleblowers have an important role in ensuring compliance within any organised body. In every organisation one or more people know what is going on and may suspect wrong-doing. Compliance also has an important role as an interlocutor between the business and the regulators. To achieve all these objectives it is vitally important that compliance seeks to attract and recruit the right staff.
