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Insights
Practical thinking on the issues that matter most to regulated financial firms, from governance design to regulatory readiness.
From 18 March 2027, firms must report serious operational incidents to the FCA as soon as practicable — and the FCA expects that to mean within 24 hours. The rules reach far further down the market than most guidance suggests, and the 24-hour clock is a governance problem, not a reporting one.
"Operational incidents are ordinary and recurring, so unpreparedness is not a defensible position. The regime attaches a very short deadline to a judgement many firms have never formally assigned, and the ones that handle 18 March 2027 well will have resolved those decision rights beforehand rather than under pressure"
From 1 September 2026, non-financial misconduct becomes an explicit, enforceable conduct matter for every SM&CR firm. Robert Durrant explains what is changing and what boards of small and growing firms need to do now.
As financial firms grow, governance arrangements that worked at launch quickly become inadequate. We explore what proportionate, effective governance looks like at each stage of a firm's development and the warning signs that your structures are falling behind your growth.
Governance failures at regulated firms rarely happen overnight. They tend to stem from a handful of recurring mistakes, most of which are entirely avoidable. We identify the five most common governance errors we see in scaling financial businesses and how to address them.
Too many firms treat operational resilience as a box-ticking exercise, producing documentation that satisfies the regulator on paper but adds no real protection. We make the case for why genuine resilience thinking is a strategic advantage, not a regulatory burden.
The firms that handle supervisory visits and thematic reviews best are those that prepared long before the regulator came knocking. We outline a practical approach to building regulatory readiness into your firm’s operating rhythm, not just as a crisis response.
Board effectiveness is not just about composition and attendance. It is about the quality of decisions made in the boardroom. We examine the structural and behavioural factors that distinguish high-performing boards from those that merely meet their regulatory obligations.
Large financial institutions have invested heavily in crisis management frameworks, often in response to hard lessons learned. We distil the most transferable insights for SMEs and start-ups that need robust crisis response capabilities without enterprise-scale resources.
Outsourcing creates dependencies that can affect customers, operations and business continuity if not managed effectively. We explore how regulated firms can take a proportionate, risk-based approach to third-party oversight that satisfies regulatory expectations and builds genuine resilience.
Our advisors are available for a no-obligation initial conversation on any of the governance, risk, resilience, or regulatory topics covered in our insights series.
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