Reglab's compliance team

The role of the compliance team

Our compliance team consists of both experienced professionals and juniors. To support the team, our compliance manager, Merel, has been appointed to guide the team. This includes training the less experienced staff and improving services. Merel is also responsible for audit reports. Here, it is important that she checks the practices of offices and gives suggestions for improvements. An audit report helps the office comply with AML regulations.

Another important activity of our compliance team is writing policy reports for the firms. These reports give a firm more insight into how to deal with AML regulations. This ensures that clear guidelines are in place and implemented so that the rules come to life within the firm. Besides audits and policy development, Merel also helps our junior specialists to review policies and draft work processes themselves. This support adds a bit more variety to the work and contributes to the development of the specialists.

‘At many offices, the rules only really come to life after the application of process and policy guidelines arising from an audit’ - Merel 

From challenge to unique concept   

Performing compliance tasks is a daunting task for many offices. It is not so much that offices lack the need, but rather their valuable time. The compliance team therefore experiences more and more that offices ask RegLab for support so that they also work and stay 100% Wwft-compliant. Here, we provide an office-specific approach so that we can support and relieve the offices as much as possible. By taking Wwft compliance out of their hands, the firms can take on other challenges and spend more time on clients.  

Law firm clients and lawyers themselves benefit from a smooth and quick onboarding. Experience shows that in practice, mainly support staff carry out the onboarding process.  The training and guidance of these employees is therefore crucial. RegLab's team has extensive experience in this and has developed proven processes to (fully) guide support departments as well. This contributes to fast onboarding where minimal effort is required from both the lawyer and his client. In case of substantive Wwft questions, Merel and her team are always ready to provide quick and appropriate advice.    

The value of good communication

Good communication between compliance and the firms is incredibly important. Our compliance team therefore tries to stay in constant communication with their clients. They do this by visiting the office or by mail and online meetings. When a compliance specialist visits the office, they make sure it is clear who the point of contact is. Most firms find this to be an effective way of working together.

To ensure that the compliance team stays up-to-date with the latest regulatory developments, they subscribe to various newsletters and publications from regulators. Among others, they follow the newsletters of the DNB and AFM. By keeping up to date and responding to European directives, the team can anticipate changes. When a change takes place, clients are also informed in good time. Statements by regulators are also discussed within the team. Although the AML uses open standards, these rulings provide a framework within which offices have to operate. It is important that offices not only comply with the rules, but also meet the regulators' expectations in order to avoid fines and reputational damage.

Centralising the AML is often best practice

For the compliance team, it is difficult to estimate in advance when a visit from the regulator will take place. Often, firms are inspected unexpectedly and have to provide documentation and information within a short deadline. Asking questions or consulting is then unfortunately not possible. This makes it essential for offices to be well prepared at all times. A clear overview of processes and documentation is therefore the best preparation. When the regulator then conducts a full or partial investigation, the firm is more likely to be compliant.

One of the most important best practices is to centralise the AML process within a firm. Making one person responsible for this process allows for a unified and consistent policy. This ensures that everyone within the firm knows what is expected of them and that compliance with AML regulations runs more smoothly. Experience shows that firms that have centralised this process prove to be compliant faster and have less difficulty in complying with the regulations.

Last but not least: Conduct a KYC investigation 💡

In KYC investigations, it is important to identify suspicious activity by paying attention to countries involved and the structure of the client. It is crucial to understand what the client is going to do and whether the structure of the transaction is logical and appropriate. This helps identify suspicious activity. In addition, when necessary, appropriate measures can be applied.

About Merel

Merel has been senior compliance manager at RegLab since December 2023. On a daily basis, she is involved in supervising our specialists, safeguarding office integrity and writing policy reports for clients. Her knowledge, skills and positivity are incredibly valuable to our specialists. She is therefore quite the busy bee within the compliance team!

Next up

In the next blog, we will meet our French-speaking sales representative Jonathan. In this blog, we will focus on national differences between the markets in which RegLab operates.