Asset Management Compliance in 2022

Four asset management compliance trends that can help your organisation ease the burden, including leveraging compliance automation for growth

FREMONT, CA: Asset management compliance serves a vital purpose, but if compliance is not well managed, it ultimately hinders banking operations. MiFID II added significant new reporting requirements for both specific transactions and the broader trade flow.

1. Improving Compliance-related Tasks

Organizations could manually handle compliance obligations by filling out a few forms and mailing them because compliance was sporadic and generally easy. It wasn't that long ago that handbooks, internal memoranda, and a few documents placed on the intranet might be used to manage compliance tasks.

But asset managers simply cannot continue operating on that premise because compliance regulation has accelerated too quickly, and there are undoubtedly a few contributing factors. The volume of compliance responsibilities has dramatically increased as transaction scrutiny has become more commonplace than unusual. Both the rate of regulatory change and the sheer scale of the regulatory burden have drastically increased.

It implies that, at a minimum, the processes for consulting and carrying out compliance requirements must be made digital. Country manuals and other such documents need to be digitised and made readily available. To ensure that compliance duties are completed on time, the compliance team can also build up digital rules that asset and relationship managers can follow.

2. Effective Compliance Oversight

Asset management compliance digitization is essential and urgent, but it's only the first step. Regulation is always changing, placing a heavy burden on compliance teams, and staffing is not increasing to make up for it. Overall, this leaves asset management teams confused about what they can and cannot do and may doubt if internal guidance accurately captures all the nuances of the most recent rule. To assist asset managers in sorting through the changes that are pertinent to them, including figuring out the significance of such changes and how to react, compliance monitoring must be efficient.

Adopting compliance tools or regulatory technology is essential since having access to regulatory compliance automation makes the entire process simpler. It also cuts down on the number of time teams spend on compliance monitoring by focusing on the important things. Online compliance monitoring, for instance, can instantly alert compliance teams to changes in relevant rules so that they can take immediate action.

3. Scale Asset Management Compliance through Automation

Automation is not limited to compliance monitoring. There is a case to be made for automation throughout the entirety of the compliance handling process. Manual operations take an exorbitant amount of time, even when they are computerised. Human mistake is also a possibility, and it carries the potential of expensive fines for compliance violations. Banks can only increase asset management compliance efficiently by automating a large portion of the compliance process. Without automation, scaling becomes an expensive operation or, worse still, it restricts growth.

Investing in digital banking compliance increases trust in compliance processes since it's much simpler to verify and report on them, providing assurance that the controls are in place and working as intended. Compliance automation will assist banks in implementing scalable compliance management solutions through 2022. Thus, compliance teams are not required to be the bottleneck for every compliance request. The additional layer of assistance provided by compliance digitisation will allow compliance teams to focus more on helping the business where it is truly required, rather than on tedious administrative activities.

4. Integrate Compliance into Operational Procedures

It may be worthwhile to reevaluate how a business process is handled when it becomes a big burden to an organisation. This holds for compliance as well. Financial organisations can now integrate compliance into their everyday operations as opposed to handling it separately. Asset managers receive immediate answers to regulatory questions when and where they are needed, precisely within the existing technological infrastructure, by integrating compliance into routine procedures. Teams can complete routine tasks more quickly and compliantly by employing a compliance management programme.

Most company processes, as well as most enterprise systems like a CRM or even trade execution software, can incorporate compliance. Asset managers can quickly identify the best course of action for a client in a certain nation. There is no requirement to wait while a colleague is consulted or the arduous regulatory manual is read to locate the solution.

By 2022, one major tendency will be to deal with compliance as an integrated step as opposed to a distinct procedure. A net drain on their operations might be turned into a competitive advantage by banks who are aware of these developments in regulatory compliance.