Larger organisations can often benefit from having large compliance teams, which allow them to delegate responsibilities across a wider field. For small organisations, however, this is not a luxury they can rely on.
In a recent post by Ascent RegTech, the company outlined how through the right technologies and practices, many small compliance teams – sometimes teams of one – are able to perform at similar levels of efficiency as larger companies.
The company outlined, “As government agencies sharpen their regulatory focus coming out of the pandemic, today’s compliance officer faces an overflowing bucket of challenges. The costs associated with monitoring, managing, implementing, and reviewing risk for an organization continue to rise at rapid rates. Feeling the pressure to swiftly sift through the relentless flurry of new regulations can be problematic, opening the firm up to scrutiny over errors.”
The rising compliance fees and heightened attention from agencies can often mean businesses are shelling out thousands, if not millions in fines. This can be heavily cumbersome for businesses’ revenue stream and can be a drain on employee morale.
According to Ascent, many compliance officers are also often champions for change management within their organisations. This can be due to the requirement for them to sift through hundreds of documents for hours at a time, then from here having to identify obligations and their impact on current processes and procedures.
The company said the biggest opportunity for companies building out new revenue channels rests on the shoulders of compliance teams, stating, “They have incredible control over the speed with which organizations grow, because until the right compliance processes are in place, firms can’t move into new markets or offer new products and services. Put another way, the speed of your compliance team has a direct impact on your firm’s revenue streams.”
Without a team to delegate responsibilities to, individual compliance officers often have to prioritise and adapt, which may make companies think they need to hire more employees. However, such investment will require employee training and supervision, as well as the possibility to reduce the ability of the team to maintain performance at optimal levels.
Ascent said, “The best kept secret of successful compliance officers is adopting the right technology that complements their strengths and empowers them to work quickly and effectively.
“It’s nearly impossible to manually capture everything correctly. Compliance officers stand the best chance of efficiently identifying, implementing and overseeing regulatory risks and obligations when they’re working in sync with an intelligent technology solution. With access to the most reliable data, machine learning can free up compliance officers to focus on the big picture. And no compliance solution is complete without human oversight, so as the regtech industry advances, it enhances the quality of work that compliance officers produce.”
Find the full post here.
