Raleigh, NC , Dec. 14, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- RegEd, the leading provider of compliance and risk management technology to the financial services industry, today released the results of its anti-bribery and corruption compliance management poll. The poll was conducted during “Critical Capabilities to Address Bribery and Corruption,” which highlighted 2015 FCPA (Foreign Corrupt Practices Act) developments and trends to expect in 2016. The webinar was hosted by RegEd and GRC 20/20, a leading industry analyst firm.
Compliance, legal and risk management professionals working in the U.S. financial services space were polled about their greatest challenges related to FCPA compliance. Fifty-four percent of respondents identified “understanding FCPA-related risk exposure” as their core challenge. Michael Rasmussen, The GRC Pundit of GRC 20/20, commented on the results, “This represents such a common challenge because many organizations are finding themselves at risk of enforcement actions in this area for the first time. In some cases, small to midsize organizations that were previously under the radar of the DOJ and SEC are now falling into focus. Or they are in an industry, such as financial services, that is now more targeted by regulators than it was ten years ago.”
Thirty-one percent of respondents indicated that providing evidence of compliance effectiveness tops their list of challenges. “Recent shifts in enforcement trends suggest that firms need to go beyond a compliance program that is well-designed. They must be able to show that compliance programs are effective through defensible evidence and audit trails in their ongoing efforts in policy and training dissemination, attestation management and testing adherence to policies, procedures, training and controls,” Rasmussen continued. Other challenges cited by attendees included “communicating and training on policies and tracking awareness” and “third party due diligence.”
Respondents were also polled on their approach to managing FCPA compliance. Sixty-three percent of respondents indicated that they primarily use documents, spreadsheets and email to manage this critical compliance function. Organizations increasingly find that a manual process is inadequate to manage the overwhelming information and complex, enterprise-spanning collaboration required for compliance in an area such as anti-bribery and corruption compliance.
Debra Freitag, Chief Strategy Officer at RegEd, stated, “Firms continue to struggle to identify and close the loop on compliance gaps. Reliance on homegrown solutions or an inability to adapt a general GRC framework to suit very specific requirements often results in significant inefficiency and compliance failures. An integrated compliance management platform like RegEd’s CODE solution is required to effectively manage the lifecycle of policies, procedures, controls and training – and to readily produce the comprehensive documentation that regulators increasingly demand.”
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About RegEd
RegEd is a leading provider of compliance technology solutions with relationships with more than 400 enterprise clients, including the nations’ top financial services firms. Established in 1994 by former regulators, the company is a recognized industry authority and has created the standard of excellence for rule-based and content-driven compliance automation for insurance companies, investment advisors and broker-dealers. RegEd solutions drive new levels of operational efficiency and enable firms to cost-effectively comply with regulations and mitigate risk. For more information, visit www.reged.com .
Madelyn Matthews 919-653-5202 Madelyn.matthews@reged.com
