MyComplianceOffice Blog

Conduct risk issues including employee compliance, transaction surveillance and third party risk pose significant risk to financial services firms across the globe. MCO CEO Brian Fahey sat down with Robin Amlôt of IBS Intelligence to talk about what financial institutions can do to avoid conduct risk compliance pitfalls.

The regulatory framework for Digital Assets and Cryptocurrencies (Crypto) has been rapidly evolving. Regulators expect that firms play their part to ensure that investing in crypto is as safe as possible for investors and customers or else enforcement will be pursued.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently released it’s report of enforcement actions for their fiscal year 2021 ending on September 30. 697 companies were hit with violations this year.

New actions were included against emerging threats in the crypto and SPAC spaces, but there was still plenty of enforcement in more traditional areas like insider trading, inadequate disclosure and breaching of fiduciary duty.

What types of misconduct landed individuals and firms on the SEC’s radar this year?

Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) are a hot topic in the news right now—and an issue that’s been on the mind of SEC Chair Gary Gensler as well. In remarks at several events over the past few months he’s voiced concerns that SPACs can leave investors vulnerable and at risk.

The SPAC process leaves individuals and firms open to conduct risk and conflicts of interest along the way. And even as SPACs are in the limelight these days, it’s important to remember that there’s ample room for conduct risk in a traditional Initial Public Offering (IPO) as well.

“We believe very strongly that to lower costs in your compliance management, and lower risks, you need an integrated system with the functions working together – particularly in conflict-of-interest compliance scenarios…”