RIA Fiduciary, Compliance & Operational Services
Contact us to schedule an introductory call and share your firm’s goals for the future.
Focused on Your Success
This business unit within the Pohl Consulting organization focuses on two components of an RIA’s success equation:
- Compliance and Regulatory Relationship Management
- Creating Administration & Operations Efficiencies
Organizational Development services are available through Pohl Consulting and Training including sales and service training, sales management development, executive search, and organizational infrastructure development.
Post-Examination Response Assistance
If you experience a regulatory audit that identifies areas of your organization needing serious attention, our experienced consulting professionals can help your team respond.
Why should my organization consider post-examination consulting?
Regulatory audits are a recurring reality of the RIA world, and post-examination consulting can help you develop a plan to rectify any audit deficiencies. A poor audit report and/or a downgrade in ratings jeopardizes the organization’s other accomplishments. Plans for the future must be put on hold until problems identified in the examination report are corrected. Examiners will continue to monitor the corrections closely to ensure that changes are made to avoid further problems.
Future profitability is negatively affected by this ongoing distraction. Once the problem is identified, an aggressive and proactive remediation is best to limit the short and long term effect on the organization. It is important to remember that audit findings that are not remediated properly – and that do not stay corrected – will result in your regulators involving the board of directors and board members personally to ensure appropriate remediation.
Post-audit consulting is a valuable tool to quickly and proactively avoid negative effects on profitability, reduce the audit remediation effect on the rest of the organization, and limit the need to involve board members on an individual basis.
What are the specific benefits to my organization from Post Audit Response Assistance?
Post Examination Response is usually an urgent, highly-visible and emotional project for your entire organization. Without external help it can seriously impact other priorities of your team – such as client service, compliance officer training, business development, and myriad other projects you might have underway, all of which affect profitability and potentially your next exam or audit.
Utilizing an experienced third party can be very positively perceived by regulators and senior management, demonstrating that you have taken the concerns seriously, obtained professional help, and have addressed the concerns aggressively and proactively.
“We help RIAs navigate challenging compliance issues and implement strong workflows and best practices to ensure ongoing alignment.”
E. Loyd Pohl, CEO | Pohl Consulting & Training
Outsourcing, Hands-on Compliance Support
The RIA Compliance Outsourcing program is our most extensive program that involves our experienced professionals.
Pohl Consulting and Training’s staff of experienced consultants has the unique ability to provide proactive, hands-on compliance outsourcing customized to the unique needs of your organization. The program is our most extensive, involving our experienced professionals leading the compliance function of your organization. In this program we take on most, or all, of the normal work of a compliance officer and provide hands-on compliance guidance and leadership to your organization. Our team’s level of experience and industry connections means that your organization will benefit from having up-to-date industry knowledge on best practices and trends.
The regulatory environment continues to become more complex and more aggressive. The ongoing implementation of Dodd-Frank required regulations, the focused attention on all actions related to anti-money laundering, and the increasing scope of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau oversight are all elements of the evolution of financial services regulation. The shifting of the regulatory landscape toward more of a law enforcement approach rather than the traditional “supervision and support” approach means that your organization must constantly adapt to stay current. This is difficult for any organization, but those with smaller staffs will be especially affected.
While regulatory pressure is becoming greater and more complex, two other business realities also exist. First, financial pressure on most financial services organizations is near an all-time high. And second, even if the organization has the ability to add compliance staff, the availability of quality, experienced compliance professionals is limited.
Our compliance outsourcing program is a valuable means to obtain quality, experienced, legal and compliance veterans to support or lead your compliance program for a fraction of the cost of one full-time junior compliance staff member.
Training Staff on Compliance and Their Role
Supporting compliance personnel results in current and long term value–increasing and protecting the organization’s bottom line.
Compliance Training helps compliance personnel at all levels in an RIA to:
- understand and be more effective in their role,
- know the challenges they face,
- realize the need to work effectively with different personalities,
- learn how to expand their knowledge, effectiveness and credibility while maintaining balance and perspective.
Individuals who complete the program will have the tools to understand the value of proactive and informed actions, how to make a strong case without devolving into confrontation, and how to gain and utilize the substantive knowledge that is essential in today’s evolving regulatory environment.
Compliance Training has the flexibility to help new compliance staff adapt to, and excel at, their new role as well as to support experienced compliance leaders to identify tools and best practices that will continue their growth and enhance the value they can bring to the organization.
Why should my organization consider Compliance Staff Coaching and Training?
Compliance staff in Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) firms all face the same challenge of supporting a business striving to be successful in a highly regulated industry. Organizations wisely invest in training for business development staff. A shortfall from business development can affect profitability now and in the next several quarters before it can be rectified. However, a compliance or regulatory problem can destroy the productivity of the bulk of the organization due to necessary efforts to rectify exposure to customer claims and/or regulatory issues. This loss of productivity across the organization resulting from remediation efforts is experienced even in the absence of a legal action or a formal enforcement action.
What are the specific benefits to my trust organization from Compliance Training?
Compliance Staff Training directly supports the organization’s compliance program by preparing compliance personnel, resulting in current and long term value–increasing and protecting the organization’s bottom line.