18 Skyline | Edition 7 | Winter 2024

Paul Bruns

Compliance Director Simplybiz

In the intricate world of providing mortgage advice, regulatory compliance stands as the cornerstone of trust and integrity. Clients place their financial well-being in the hands of advisers, expecting meticulous adherence to rules and regulations and, as readers will know all too well, the work required to meet these rules is costly, time-consuming, and seemingly constantly growing.

One of the most significant challenges advisers face when meeting regulatory requirements is ever-evolving regulatory landscape. Keeping pace with the intricacies of those requirements, and avoiding inadvertent breaches and compliance gaps. All of which can feel like a full-time job in itself.

Taking a proactive approach to Training & Competence and its components is a key consideration to ensuring mortgage advisers uphold regulatory standards and maintain professional competence whilst delivering good consumer outcomes in line with Consumer Duty requirements.

Here, we look at the ten key steps to delivering a compliance training and competence framework, supporting adviser development whilst delivering good consumer outcomes.

1. Monthly adviser file reviews

These reviews involve regular assessments of the quality and suitability of client advice provided by mortgage advisers. By scrutinising client files, firms can ensure compliance with regulatory standards, identify areas for improvement, and offer targeted support to advisers. This activity helps maintain consistency and adherence to best practices across the advisory team and supports the delivery of good consumer outcomes. File reviews can highlight any trends which can inform decisions made about an advice process. They also provide a clear barometer in respect of the advice being provided to customers and are a fundamental tool in risk management.

For larger firms that have in-house file review teams, we have just launched a‘ Check The Checker’ file review service which reviews the advice quality of the original file along with the output from the

Taking a proactive approach to Training & Competence and its components is a key consideration to ensuring mortgage advisers uphold regulatory standards... internal file review completed, thus providing independent opinion on the robustness of the internal file review standards and process.

2. KPI review and analysis

Key Performance Indicator( KPI) review and analysis allow firms to evaluate adviser performance against predefined metrics. By tracking KPIs, firms can identify high-performing advisers, areas for improvement, and potential training needs. This data-driven approach enables firms to make informed decisions and allocate resources effectively to support adviser development. Typical mortgage related KPIs could be lender spread to monitor potential lender bias, NTUs to monitor quality of advice presentations, file review output and incidence of mortgage type across the business – what is the spread of interest only versus repayment or fixed versus variable rate across the adviser base?

3. CPD monitoring

Continuing Professional Development( CPD) monitoring ensures advisers engage in ongoing learning and skill enhancement