Finance Function - compliance and control

Creating a strong compliance and control culture in the finance function is of paramount importance in the heavily regulated financial services industry.

Companies need to establish and monitor efficient control mechanisms throughout the organisation, especially in the production of reliable financial and regulatory reporting data. Breakdowns in control such as poor reconciliations and unsubstantiated balances can be expensive to rectify, lead to regulatory sanctions and damage a company's reputation. This is a particularly high risk for those companies who have quickly grown and have numerous systems and fragmented processes.

The well controlled company is less likely to suffer costly operational losses than the poorly controlled one. The trick is to develop a strict risk based control environment. With additional regulatory requirements such as Solvency II and Basel III, companies must maximise the efficiency of existing controls while demonstrating compliance with the new regulations.

Financial services companies need to understand the need for change in compliance, control and risk practices and be given the motivation, tools and support to bring it into their everyday work. Companies need to create a clear governance and accountability framework which is at the heart of their organisation's culture

PwC bring together a group of experienced change consultants and technical experts from our assurance practice to offer a leading proposition in this area. Our current projects include analysing and improving the current control environment and assisting companies in large scale restructuring to maximise the opportunities that new regulation presents.