Protecting the brand in Belgium

The financial services sector has been facing for many years an ever increasing regulatory challenge and this trend will certainly continue. The recent financial turmoil has clearly demonstrated the importance for robust compliance processes such as adequate product due diligence, appropriate investment and risk profiles, unambiguous sales practices and client information. The adoption of MiFID still requires many improvements of the current operational processes. We may therefore expect reinforcement of the current regulatory framework as well as higher expectations from the regulators.

Compliance teams have therefore an increasingly important role to play in protecting and enhancing corporate value and reputation in the face of stakeholder demands for greater integrity, accountability and financial integrity.

The present report aims at providing a Belgian perspective on the status of the compliance function in parallel to our Pan European study “Protecting the brand”. This follows similar studies that we conducted in 2002 and 2005 at both international and Belgian levels.

Compliance is everyone’s responsibility. Organisations should therefore develop a culture promoting mindset, values, behaviours and processes that are aligned with this goal.

Compliance function operations should be holistic and be able to operate in complex organisational structures but also cost effective by adopting robust risk based approaches and adequate monitoring processes. While the adopted governance models for compliance clearly show that the function has reached a certain level of maturity, the perception of the compliance officer is still balancing between the “policeman” and the “trusted advisor” and the interactions with other management as well as the other control functions still need to be further established and formalised.

Compliance should also take into account the external stakeholders. In that respect, the study reveals that the compliance officers should be further involved in the dialogue with the supervisor over the regulatory agenda.

We sincerely thank all the participants who have enabled us – we hope – to offer useful insights into the progress and remaining challenges for boards, management and compliance officers alike. We also thank our colleagues Wendy Reed, Jan Willem Kaptein, Joke Lierman and Koen De Vleesschauwer who have been instrumental in driving the study process and the preparation of this report.

We hope you find the results both illuminating and actionable.

Download the survey "Protecting the brand"