MyComplianceOffice Blog

During 2020, many factors have shaped the regulations and enforcement actions to maintain market integrity and place the interests of clients ahead of firms and individuals. In addition to the challenges faced by compliance and risk departments, the number of people trading worldwide has risen, pressuring regulators and compliance departments to quickly act to monitor conflicts of interest and prevent individuals from taking market advantage.

According to a 2019 survey financial institutions, especially banks, are falling behind when applying digital transformation to conduct risk management. The current situation shone a light on the lack of technology to monitor employees' activities, regulations, conflicts of interest and conduct risk across organizations. During the pandemic, risk and compliance departments were struggling to manage risks, provide reporting and comply with regulations. All that drove even more attention to the need for RegTech solutions in financial services.

ESMA published its annual report on December 21, summarising administrative and criminal sanctions and other measures imposed under the Market Abuse Regulation in 2019. A sum of 279 administrative sanctions and measures and 60 criminal sanctions were imposed for infringements of MAR in 2019. The total value of the penalties exceeds €88 million.

2020 was a different year, but some things never change. MCO once again hosted several webinars to update compliance and risk professionals on the latest regulations, enforcements and industry best practices. Here are some of the highlights of what we learned from our expert speakers in 2020.

In a virtual conference, Julia Hoggart, Director of Market Oversight at the FCA discusses the challenges posed by the pandemic and highlights that at this stage firms should have overcome these challenges, improved surveillance and risk assessments. The speech is an indication as to where the FCA may focus their attention during the rest of this year and into 2021.