Senior Managers & Certification Regime (SM&CR)

Enhance your governance, accountability and culture today with our Senior Managers Regime

We Mitigate Your Personal and Firmwide Regulatory Risk

The Senior Managers & Certification Regime (SM&CR) was introduced to strengthen culture and governance in firms. The regime promotes greater individual accountability and enhanced standards of personal conduct. SM&CR is central to the culture and conduct agenda of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA).

Recently, firms have experienced changes in daily priorities, operations (including remote working), management control and Board oversight. You may have deferred risk governance and internal control processes and activities.

Financial services regulators regularly remind firms about ongoing SM&CR obligations and their expectations of firms and Senior Managers Regime. More needs to be done to further embed SM&CR within organisations and mindsets.

Given the increased focus on individual accountability, Senior Managers must demonstrably exercise proper oversight and meet expectations to manage their own personal regulatory risk.

Our regulatory compliance specialists provide training and help firms assess their SM&CR compliance. We’ll enable you to further strengthen and embed your SM&CR framework.

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Senior Managers & Certification Regime (SM&CR) Brochure

Senior Managers & Certification Regime Compliance

Senior Managers and Certification Regime

We support solo-regulated and dual-regulated firms’ need to ensure compliance. We will help you meet the requirements of the Senior Managers and Certification Regime in the following areas:

Providing independent assurance to the Board and Senior Managers on SM&CR frameworks and offering remediation. These frameworks cover: Policies, Statements of Responsibilities (SORs), Management Responsibilities Maps, Fitness & Propriety assessment process, breach notification process and records, Conduct Rules training process and records, recruitment process (including regulatory references).
Independent review, testing and remediation of reasonable steps framework. We ensure your documentation is fit for purpose, providing peace of mind to Senior Managers.
Assisting new Senior Managers in understanding their regulatory responsibilities and meeting their application requirements. (E.g. SORs, skills gap analysis, learning & development plan, induction programme).

SM&CR training is an opportunity for firms to embed the right culture. Our regulatory compliance specialists will develop one-off or ongoing SM&CR and Conduct Rules training programmes tailored to your team’s requirements.

Receive Independent Assurance on SM&CR Compliance

Our regulatory compliance consultants at Xcina collaborate with firms to deliver SM&CR advice and achieve the following:

An independent review (or support) using specialist external resources. We will provide the Board and Senior Management with independent assurance that relevant SM&CR policies, procedures and documentation are in place. We will ensure they are operating effectively to mitigate the risk of non-compliance with SM&CR requirements.
Providing peace of mind to individual Senior Managers. We will enable them to demonstrate compliance with Senior Manager Conduct Rules and to evidence the discharge of Senior Manager prescribed responsibilities – thereby mitigating individual accountability risk. These may relate to the Senior Manager Regime, Certification Regime, and Conduct Rules, as well as overall and other responsibilities.
Strengthening and further embedding of the SM&CR framework including Conduct Rules. We help you to sustain governance, accountability and a positive culture.
Regular sharing of insights into relevant regulatory trends and developments, as well as leading practices.

Experience the Value of SM&CR Advice from Xcina Consulting

Senior Managers and Certification Regime

When you become a client, you benefit from Xcina Consulting’s extensive subject matter expertise. We implement leading practices gained from assisting organisations across financial services sectors with their SM&CR requirements.

Our SM&CR compliance specialists have many years’ practical experience on the subject across a range of firm types. They are also at the forefront of the latest developments, regularly conducting industry surveys, providing thought leadership and speaking at industry conferences on the topic.

Our team includes a blend of former Senior Managers, Heads of Compliance and Regulators. They provide pragmatic, value-adding solutions tailored to your specific context, not generic impractical recommendations.

We share our experience with you and provide knowledge transfer as required. With our training, your team will be equipped to use and maintain your SM&CR framework independently going forward.

Access subject matter expertise and advice upon request with our cost-effective solution.

What our clients say

Lindsey and Xcina have assisted us with bespoke SMCR training and reviewed associated documentation. They have also assisted with various ad hoc compliance review requests. We have always found Lindsey to be very helpful and informed on the relevant subject matter. He has always been quick to respond to our requests and has been a pleasure to work with.

Chris Sloan, Director ClucasGray Investment Management UK Limited

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If you’d like to know more about any of our services or have a question, then please let us know.

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