Ben specialises in providing compliance, governance and risk advice to boards of banks and regulated companies and assisting new firms get authorised by the FCA and PRA for the first time. He has worked with firms across a number of financial service sectors, in particular leading the applications for banks, investment and fintech firms. This includes supporting sectors that are facing FCA regulation for the first time such as consumer credit and cryptocurrency. For five years he was Chair of the Association of Professional Compliance Consultants Authorisations Working Group where he regularly liaised with the FCA authorisations team to help them consider improvements to the applications process.
As CEO of Compliancy Services he is responsible for the development of their strategy and the new products and service innovation. Under his direction the company has shown a strong aptitude for bringing successful new developments to market which have included a number of regtech services such as an e-learning platform with more than 5,000 users, a software as a service app that helps consumer credit firms manage their compliance, PSD2 compliance monitoring and third party financial institution onboarding and monitoring.
Before joining Compliancy Services in 2004 Ben occupied senior management positions, which included managing European M&A for a subsidiary of GMAC and as Operations Director for a specialist UK provider responsible for a number of asset management activities.
Iain is our Joint CEO, setting up the company in 2003, and heads up our Mortgages, Insurance and Consumer Credit sectors.
His main focus is on large clients, which include a number of Plcs, household names and other large firms, providing board level support and guidance to clients’ compliance functions.
Iain has significant experience of the financial services industry, including over 25 years in banking, investments and insurance with Barclays, Citibank and NatWest banks and is formally qualified in both Banking and Accountancy. Iain is also a Chartered Management Consultant.
Iain also has been responsible for ensuring many regulated firms gain their FCA licence and has acted as a skilled person under section166. Iain’s clients also benefit from his wide-ranging business and consulting experience.
Iain is a senior member of several industry organisations, providing input into the formation of policy and advising on lobbying. He is also a regular speaker on business and compliance matters.
Philip has 35 years financial services experience, 31 of which have been in UK Compliance. He has extensive knowledge of both retail and wholesale compliance responsibilities and obligations, the last 10 of which have been predominately focused on the wholesale sector.
Before joining Compliancy Services, Philip spent 10 years working with ACA Compliance based in London. He was jointly responsible for a team of over 50 compliance professionals and a turnover of £11m. He joined the ACA group as part of its acquisition of Cordium in September 2018. At that time he was a Managing Director responsible for Cordium’s UK Compliance practice.
His first role in compliance was in 1995 when he worked as an Enforcement Officer for the Life Assurance and Unit Trust Regulatory Organisation, known as ‘LAUTRO’. He then spent subsequent years in compliance roles for The Hartford, that served the UK IFA market, with Compliance First (now part of SimplyBiz) and with National Australia Group.
He has extensive hands on technical knowledge experience with IFAs, banks, hedge funds, private equity/venture capital firms, corporate finance firms, and other more niche regulated and unregulated entities.
Kumar is our Managing Director and is responsible for all of our consulting activities in the Banking, Payments, Capital Markets and Asset Management sectors.
Kumar is an internationally experienced Counterparty Risk, Regulatory Compliance & Change and Risk & Operations Transformation Management Leader and trouble-shooter. He has extensive and diverse management and line role experiences within Banking Credit, Counterparty, Market & Operational Risk Management and Insurance spanning 28+ years in Europe and Asia.
He has galvanised and extended his skillset during the last 8+ years within Consultancy in areas of Advisory, Management and Execution to a spectrum of financial institutions whilst carving out specialisms in Forensic Risk Management, Regulatory Compliance & Strategic Credit and Counterparty Transformations. Kumar has gained a deep understanding of, including stakeholder impacts, both current and in-flight Financial & Banking regulations. His FCA secondment within Financial Benchmarks has given unique insights into the tri-party regulatory objectives in setting policy, the role of industry consultation and implementation.
Andrew is our Chief Financial Officer and is responsible for managing financial strategy and operations at Compliancy Services.
Andrew is a financial professional with over 30 years experience in a wide range of business sectors. Prior to joining Compliancy Services, Andrew served 5 years as the Finance Director of Fairfax I.S. PLC, a boutique Investment Bank in Mayfair, London. He has also served as the Chief Financial Officer of Stern Stewart & Co, renowned for being the EVA company, a worldwide management consultancy firm.
Andrew began his career in Audit where he trained to become a Chartered Accountant at RSM, and has audited clients within a wide range of sectors. As a Senior Audit Manager, he specialised in the Financial Services Sector where Rathbone Brothers PLC and its subsidiaries were one of his prestigious clients.
Andrew is a Fellow Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.
Steve Robertson is our Head of Operations, leading and managing the team responsible for head office based client projects.
A long and varied career in the heart of the financial services industry has included some of our most prestigious financial institutions: Chief Operating Officer at Lawson Conner, an ‘Umbrella Hosting Platform; Head of the UK Trustee and Depositary division at HSBC; and senior roles with Lloyd’s of London, CRESTCo and The London Stock Exchange.
A Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investment (where he also serves as an Educational Trust Trustee) and an alumnus of Kent Business School, where he obtained his MBA, he is also a Chartered Director and Fellow of the Institute of Directors (IoD).
John is one of the UK’s foremost compliance experts in payment services, and he is Technical Director in our Payment Services Practice.
Assisting Banks, Payment Institutions and E-money Institutions manage their compliance and plan their future commercial strategies in the light of changing regulations, and has unparalleled experience of relevant payments legislation and regulation.
Immediately before joining Compliancy Services, John was Senior Manager, Compliance Advisory, for Global Transaction Banking at Lloyds Bank where he also acted as subject matter expert on payments. Prior to that he was the FSA’s Technical Specialist on Payments, dealing with the UK implementation of the Payment Services Directive and the 2nd E-Money Directive.
He was the first editor of the FSA’s PSR Approach Document and assisted with the development of PERG 15 in the Handbook, as well as assisting HM Treasury with the drafting of the UK legislation. At EU level he was a member of the European Commission’s Payments Committee, the ECB’s Forum on the Security of Retail Payments and the EBA’s Standing Committee on Consumer Protection and Financial Innovation.
James is our Client Director – Payment Services and a familiar name to many in the payments and e-money community. He leads our dedicated Payment Services Practice, responsible for delivery of consultancy services and helping clients compile and submit applications for authorisation in the UK and in the EU.
James spent over 22 years at the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) where he was, most notably, in charge of the Payments Authorisations Team. James, also, headed up the Passporting Team and participated in a number of European working groups, developing guidelines and technical standards for various single market directives.
Most significantly, James represented the FCA in drafting the EBA’s ‘Authorisation Guidelines’, which set out the information requirements for all payment services applications across Europe. He was also the Accountable Executive at the FCA responsible for the project to implement PSD2 into UK regulation.
James is currently Chair of the Association of Professional Compliance Consultants' Authorisations Working Group liaising with the FCA Authorisations department to provide feedback and opportunities for process improvement.
Colin is a senior consultant in our City Markets team, working mainly with clients in the Mortgage, Insurance, Corporate Finance, Wealth Management and CFD sectors.
Colin worked at HBoS for 33 years during which time he held senior positions in the branch network and Training departments. During the last 15 years at HBoS Colin worked in Risk and Compliance where he held the positions of Regional Risk Manager and Manager of Risk and Compliance for Retail Telephony Sales.
Colin is an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Bankers, Associate of the Chartered Securities Institute and holds a Diploma in Management Studies.
