Financial Services Regulation

Demystifying regulatory compliance to safeguard your business

The Devonshires Financial Services Regulation team comprises experts from across the firm with experience advising businesses that provide financial services in the regulated and unregulated sectors. We focus on providing clear, practical and timely advice to our clients.

FCA / HMRC supervision and authorisation

We advise housing associations on:

determining whether they need to be supervised for AML and exceptions to supervision;
determining whether they are liable to pay the Economic Crime Levy;
applications for supervision;
applications to de-registered and end supervision;
mitigating factors and penalties/ fines for late application for supervision.

Consumer Credit

We assist housing associations with all areas of consumer credit regulation and compliance, including:

We have extensive experience on implementing complex restructuring including:

applications to the FCA for new or a variation of permission;
drafting and updating FCA required policies and procedures;
drafting and advising on regulated credit arrangements e.g. for repayment of leaseholder major repair works;
reviewing business activities to provide an assessment of regulatory status;
reviewing shared equity loans to determine regulatory status;
reviewing customer correspondence under credit arrangements to check for compliance.

Senior Managers and Certification Regime

We advise on the FCA’s Senior Managers and Certification Regime, including:

providing briefing notes and board reports on the application of SMCR to your business;
providing training on the SMCR and Conduct Rules;
reviewing client action plans for implementation of SMCR;
reviewing or providing draft templates for Statement of Responsibilities, Regulatory References and Fit and Proper assessments.

Consumer Duty

We advise on the FCA’s Consumer Duty, including:

providing training on the Consumer Duty;
reviewing or providing templates for your Consumer Duty Policy and Consumer Duty Board Report;
providing briefing notes on the application of Consumer Duty to your business.

HMRC / FCA Interventions

We advise clients under scrutiny including:

Targeted HMRC investigations;
Responding to Supervisory Notices;
VREQ/OIREQ;
Skilled Person appointments;
Challenging, appealing and mitigating fines.

Money Laundering

We advise extensively on the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017, assisting clients with:

AML risk assessments;
Policy implementation and review;
Suspicious Activity Reports to the National Crime Agency;
Ad hoc advice on transactions of concern;
Regulator engagement.

Criminal Defence

We advise clients subject to criminal investigations and proceedings brought by HMRC, the CPS, CFO or NCA under, amongst others:

Taxes Management Act 1970;
Customs and Excise Management Act 1979;
VAT Act 1994;
Proceeds of Crime Act 2002;
Fraud Act 2006;
Companies Act 2006;
Bribery Act 2010;
Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017;
Criminal Finances Act 2017.

Training

We have an extensive training programme covering all aspects of our working in financial services regulation.

Whether you have a new Board member or SMF appointee requiring in depth training on their new role and responsibilities, a sales or finance team on the coal face of high-risk financial transactions, or you simply need to raise awareness of money laundering risks across the whole of your business, we can provide an effective training solution.

Training can be conducted remotely or in person to suit your needs.