Compliance competent life assurance companies: A partnership approach
| Published date | 01 March 2003 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/13581980310810363 |
| Date | 01 March 2003 |
| Pages | 10-20 |
| Author | Jonathan Edwards |
| Subject Matter | Accounting & finance |
Papers
Compliance competent life assurance
companies: A partnership approach
Jonathan Edwards
Received (in revised form): 22nd November, 2002
School of Finance and Law, Bournemouth University, Dorset House, Talbot Campus, Fern Barrow,
Poole, Dorset BH12 5BB, UK; tel: +44 (0) 1202 595284; fax: +44 (0) 1202 595261;
e-mail: jedward@bournemouth.ac.uk
Jonathan Edwards is a senior lecturer in
the School of Finance and Law, Bourne-
mouth University. He specialises in law
relating to financial services and financial
regulation. His undergraduate and post-
graduate academic experience is comple-
mented by a number of years as the
Skandia Life Research Fellow at Bourne-
mouth University, legal training manager
and consultant in the life assurance and
corporate pensions sector. He has pub-
lished in the area of competence and inde-
pendent financial advisers.
ABSTRACT
This paper, set in the context of a rationale for
financial regulation, considers how the Financial
Services Authority’s (the regulator) approach to
establishing compliance competent organisations
in the life assurance sector (the regulated) has
evolved from a prescriptive approach to one of
cooperation with those regulated, in order to
establish a working partnership. It focuses on
investment business and the resulting importance
of conduct of business regulation. It reviews the
regulator’s approach, linking academic theory to
existing practice and the progress made in the
developing and evolving relationship between
the regulator and the regulated. It establishes
what steps/phases have already taken place
within life assurance companies seeking to incor-
porate and change their compliance culture. It
creates a template for the review of progress in
seeking to achieve the regulator’s goal of compli-
ant competent organisations, while identifying
the essential elements of the new partnership
approach. This approach will not only meet the
regulator’s stated aim of improving consumer
protection but also benefit life assurance compa-
nies themselves.
PARTNERSHIP APPROACH
How does the Financial Services Authori-
ty’s (FSA’s) aim to establish Compliance
Competent Organisations (CCO),
1
by fos-
tering a partnership approach between the
regulator and the regulated, fit within the
general rationale of financial regulation?
The Financial Services and Markets Act
2000 clearly aims to build upon the existing
compliance culture first introduced in the
Financial Services Act 1986. Its regulatory
objectives of consumer protection and pro-
motion of public understanding are clearly
linked to conduct of business rules, which
are core to establishing and maintaining a
compliance competent organisation.
Jackman, Head of Industry Training and
Business Ethics, at the FSA, advocates a part-
nership approach to compliance between the
regulated and the regulator. He envisages a
form of ‘sustainable regulation’ based on a
Page 10
Journal of Financial Regulation
and Compliance, Vol. 11, No. 1,
2003, pp. 10–20
#Henry Stewart Publications,
1358–1988
Journal of Financial Regulation and Compliance Volume 11 Number 1
To continue reading
Request your trial