PIMFA Weekly News Bulletin - 23 October 2023 by PIMFA

View in browser Featured: Client Onboarding TechSprint, Calls for Evidence, D&I, Indices Survey & more.

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PIMFA WEEKLY NEWS BULLETIN 23 October 2023

PIMFA WealthTech partners with WealthOS in latest Tech Sprint, targeting the Client Onboarding process In collaboration with WealthOS, PIMFA WealthTech is kicking off a second Tech Sprint focused on showcasing how FinTechs can digitise and automate the client onboarding process, for example, by using automation technologies to improve data extraction or orchestrating onboarding workflows across multiple vendors.

Adopting FinTech solutions to automate client onboarding has the potential to help wealth management and advisor firms enhance efficiencies, heighten customer satisfaction, increase security and compliance, reduce costs, and provide richer data-driven insights.

If you know a FinTech that is using technology and innovation to help onboard clients more efficiently, please ask them to register their interest here.

Registrations are now open and will close on 3 November 2023 at 5 pm.

Celebrate next year’s Diversity & Inclusion Awards with Us

Following the success of our recent Diversity & Inclusions (D&I) Awards, attended by over 300 people from across the industry, please save the date for next year’s Awards: Thursday 10th October 2024. The event will be held at the Intercontinental Park Lane in London. View some of highlights from last week’s celebration here. The awards were created in 2021 by PIMFA to shine a light on the excellent, often untold, stories and practices that exist across organisations and individuals in our industry, and to use these examples to inspire others to continue to strive and innovate to develop a more diverse, inclusive and equitable profession. If you are interested in attending and would like to book a table, or sponsor an Award, then please contact our Head of Events, Michella Oswald.

PIMFA responds to the Home Affairs Committee – Inquiry into Fraud On 14 September, the Home Affairs Committee launched an inquiry into fraud. Within this inquiry, the Committee will examine the prevalence of fraud, the impact of fraud on victims and how they are supported in the aftermath. It will ask how effective Government and law enforcement agencies are at identifying and combatting existing and emerging forms of fraud and the Government’s progress to date on tackling fraud. PIMFA has submitted evidence to the inquiry, which you can read in full here.

The 2023 Q4 PIMFA Asset Allocation Survey CLOSES 27 October at 5pm

Complete this quarter's survey, and you can:

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Receive a complimentary, 40-page report, showing how the strategic asset allocations of your firm’s model portfolios compare to the peer average.

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Ensure the index weight methodology for the MSCI PIMFA Private Investor and Equity Risk Index Series’ remain relevant benchmarks for the UK wealth management sector.

Click here to submit

Call for evidence: Inquiry into UK Regulators The Industry and Regulators Committee has launched an inquiry into UK regulators, with a focus on their roles, remit, independence and accountability.

In particular, the inquiry will investigate whether regulators as a whole have been given a clear job to do and whether their roles and remits are sufficiently discreet from one another. It will also examine whether regulators are appropriately independent of Government, including whether the right balance is being struck between strategic and political input from government and preserving regulators’ operational independence. The inquiry will further examine how regulators should be held to account for their performance, and by whom – including the respective roles of the Government and of Parliament. This call for evidence is open until 1 December 2023. Please contact Simon Harrington for further information.

PIMFA Regulatory Forum 17 October: Recording now available The recording for this is now available on the PIMFA website here and includes:

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Update from Maja Erceg, our EU and Government Affairs Senior Policy Adviser, on CP23/20 Diversity and Inclusion in the financial sector

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Update from Alexandra Roberts, PIMFA’s Head of Regulatory Policy and Compliance, on Home Affairs Committee Inquiry into Fraud - Call for Evidence

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Update from Simon Harrington, PIMFA’s Head of Public Affairs, on Government policy and conferences

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Retirement Income Advice update

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FCA: new Form A

If you are from a PIMFA member firm and would like to be added to the distribution list to attend the next Regulatory Forum on 21st November at 3pm, please contact Heidi Bryant.

Call for evidence: Smarter regulation and the regulatory landscape The Department for Business and Trade has launched an open call for evidence to see what the postBREXIT opportunities in the regulatory landscape are. This open call for evidence is a follow-up to the policy paper: Smarter regulation to grow the economy published in May 2023 and not aimed at any specific regulator. In particular, the inquiry focuses on some of the measures being proposed in the policy paper such as the success stories and areas for improvement on regulatory agility, proportionality, and consistency of approach, and if there are any further steps the Government could take to reform the existing stock of regulation. To read this open call for evidence, click HERE. Please contact Simon Harrington for further information.

PIMFA Operations Forum - virtual meeting on 26 October at 3pm At this month's Operations Forum, we have a CREST update from Euroclear, plus a presentation on 'Digital Assets and tokenisation' from Amarjit Singh, Partner and EMEIA Assurance Blockchain Leader at EY who will be exploring the systems and controls required when managing digital assets and looking at the use of Blockchain technology in tokenisation. If you are from a PIMFA member firm and would like to register to attend the Forum, please contact Heidi Bryant.

ISITC Europe T+1 Accelerated Settlement Challenges Roundtable Series in association with the CISI, the IA and PIMFA - Kindly hosted by EY With the US moving to T+1 settlement in May 2024 and the UK Accelerated Taskforce looking at the case for the UK to follow suit thereafter, there are business, technology and process challenges which need to be explored. The ISITC Europe T+1 Forum series of inperson roundtable discussions focusing on accelerated settlement challenges continues in November with the first of three sessions: Accelerated Settlement Challenges: Treasury/ FX/ Prefunding 1 November 2023 at EY, 25 Churchill Place, Canary Wharf, London E14 5EY 12.15 (working lunch provided) hard start 12.45 - 14.15 This roundtable will focus on treasury challenges facing the provision of foreign exchange and the associated area of prefunding, which is especially challenging with the US migration to T+1, and will eventually need to be considered for T+1 in the UK and Europe. Book your place. There are two more ISITC Europe T+1 sessions in November:

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Accelerated Settlement Challenges: Stock Borrowing / Lending & Collateral / Liquidity Management 14 November 2023, register here.

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Accelerated Settlement Challenges: Data 29 November 2023, register here.

FCA multi-firm review – fraud The FCA has published a multi-firm review Proceeds of fraud - Detecting and preventing money mules | FCA.

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The review focused on systems and controls for detecting and preventing money mule activity in firms that operate payment accounts, noting that most firms use the National Fraud Database as part of its onboarding checks and sharing information with relevant authorities using lawful gateways to disrupt and detect fraud.

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The FCA noted that one area of improvement is for firms in receipt of fraudulent funds to respond more swiftly to alerts.

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The FCA states it will use full regulatory tools, including enforcement, if a firm is caught failing to maintain proportionate and adequate systems and controls.

The Home Office is due to publish a money mules action plan in the coming weeks.

FCA publishes firm complaint data for H1 2023 The FCA has published its data on the number of complaints received by FCA-regulated firms within the first half of 2023. The data set includes details on the total number of opened complaints, closed complaints, complaints upheld, and the total redress paid by firms for a six-month period within both firmspecific data for individual firms an aggregate (total) data at market-level. In H1 2023, financial services firms received 1.88 million opened complaints which is a 5% increase compared to 1.8 million complaints in H2 2022. The product groups that experienced an increase in their opened complaint numbers were as follows: decumulation & pensions (20%), investments (18%), insurance & pure protection (6%), and banking and credit cards (3%). The FCA publishes its firm complaints data every six months. Complaints data for H2 2023 is due to be published on 25 April 2024. The dataset can be accessed on the FCA’s Website.

Mitigo Q&A: Beware of the Ransomware – a 9 minute listen

In their latest Q&A, Associate member and PIMFA Plus Partner, Mitigo, are discussing all things ransomware. You can listen to podcast here.

In this episode, Partners Lindsay Hill and Kerrie Machin discuss: •

what is ransomware

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who the attackers are

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how you know you’re under attack

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what is demanded and how you pay

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your reporting obligations

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and most importantly, how to defend against it.

Listen here and for more helpful cybersecurity advice, follow Mitigo on LinkedIn, or head to their blog.

Global Wealth Management Summit: Retaining trust for a global wealth industry in flux (In-Person & Digital) 8 - 9 November 2023 | Sheraton Grand, Park Lane PIMFA are pleased to be partnering with the Financial Times on this event and members are offered 20% off ticket prices. US-China tensions and banking collapses have placed the world of wealth management under strain. Portfolio managers are seeking respite in alternative allocation strategies. However, whilst private markets are progressively accessible, adoption of digital assets poses regulatory roadblocks. Join the 6th Global Wealth Management Summit, presented by @PWM and FT Live. This flagship event convenes private banks, family offices, and wealth managers to explore effective investment strategies and evolving business models in this ever-changing wealth industry. Don't miss the chance to gain invaluable insights, network with industry leaders, and steer your wealth management strategy towards success. Secure your spot today and use the code 'PIMFA' for 20% off at https://bit.ly/48R3Bbh.

PRESS RELEASES

PRESS COVERAGE

PIMFA WealthTech partners with

Wealth Mosiac: WealthOS and

WealthOS in latest Tech Sprint on

PIMFA partner in the latest tech-

the Client Onboarding process PIMFA celebrates winners of its third Diversity & Inclusion Awards

sprint targeting the client onboarding process The Wealth.Net: PIMFA partners with wealthtech to launch digital adoption initiative

PIMFA calls for clarity on cold calling ban and public awareness campaign

Finextra: PIMFA opens applications for wealth tech client onboarding

PIMFA WealthTech Partners with

sprint

NayaOne to Launch Client Analytics & Profiling Tech Sprint

Portfolio Adviser: PIMFA reveals winners of D&I awards