Financial services, like the military, is always changing. Counterparty risk wasn’t taught at my business school, but now is number one on your risk register. Kicked off a lender panel? FCA will be after you. You need a defence. What better than a blizzard of statistics? I am going to explain here the “stat attack” defence.
HSBC and other banks have been closing accounts of IFAs and mortgage brokers for some time, citing a change in their “risk appetite”. But 2024 looks is shaping up to have a special vintage. Many new entrants find their accounts restricted to the challenger banks. Mainstream banks are really fed up with getting fined. Compliance departments are expanding to reduce risk. The result is a focus on debanking higher risk accounts. Higher risk means you.
It also means your clients, who may have any links to about half the geographical world (sanctions), to metal bashing in the west midlands (arms dealing?), your local MP (politically exposed person!), the self employed (tax evasion?) and retail financial services (money laundering?) When it comes to rooting risk out of your business, banks are champions. There is no “Risk-free rate” but compliance is off the leash and pushing out IFAs and mortgage brokers.
Compliance auditors are in demand from the brokers to provide an audit led defence for appeals. Do you have the data to prove your case?
The data IS the audit. The audit is the data. Files checks, promotions, processes, Training and HR records, CRM records, breaches, complaints, registers and the dreaded RAG rating, “Besprinkled o’er the vast expanse,” as Shakespeare might have termed it.
Audits are written in a whole new language, a weaponised defence of complex words. Rated, evaluated, assessed, quantified, measured, gauged, appraised, ranked, graded, calibrated, weighted, indexed, benchmarked, profiled and categorized! “Hit me with your stat attack.”
You can either hire a compliance auditor to collate this manually, following an audit, or get up and out the door to get a system like BAT to churn these statistics out in report format, as and when you ask for it.
BAT Compliance system is your defence. Under attack? Hit them with your stat attack!
Charlie Palmer, CEO