Regulatory and legal compliance is the glue that holds businesses together. At least, that's the positive way to look at it. That's because few business owners will say that they like regulations, and for good reason.
Whatever you do, and no matter how long you've been in business, you don't want to stop thinking about whether your company is in compliance. The consequences of not taking regulations seriously can be major — so you’ll want to stay on top of matters.
Every industry is different and has different compliance obligations. There are different requirements in different regions around the world. You need to know who your regulators are, and how to stay compliant.
To find out what you must do, you could:
Hire an experienced Compliance Officer, or appoint a Compliance Agency
Join your Industry Association and seek out their compliance group.
Some Compliance Areas that you'll want to consider, depending on the nature of your business:
Data Protection
Data Segregation
Data Sovereignty
Records Retention
Payment Card Information
Capital Adequacy
Anti-Money Laundering
Know Your Customer
Best Execution
Credit Risk
Operational Risk
Fraud Prevention
Regulator Licensing
Statutory Reporting
Cyber Security
Policy Testing.
It is important to have both the governance and execution resource for each area you must prove compliance, and not to devolve implementation responsibility.
Compliance is a major topic. This article is a short reminder of what needs to be considered.