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Compliance Plans: What Does the FSA Expect?

The FSA expects you to take reasonable care to establish and maintain systems and controls that are appropriate to your business.

In designing those systems and controls, you have a regulatory duty to take into account the following factors:

• The nature of your firm (for example, do you give whole of market advice or just from a limited range of providers)
• The scale and complexity of your firm (for example, small firms with one or two advisers will need less detailed systems and controls than a firm with more advisers)
• The diversity of your firm (for example, do you deal with a wide range of products and services or just a few; do you work from just one location or from a number)
• The volume of business undertaken through your firm and the size of the transactions
• The extent of risk associated with each product and service your firm advises on or deals with (for example, a firm undertaking mainly life insurance will carry less risk than one mainly advising on higher risk investments)

All of these items should be incorporated into your Compliance Monitoring Plan, which should be regularly reviewed and updated with changes to regulations, legislation or within your firm.

Get Compliance Plan templates in the Compliance Procedures Shop