Wealth management firm automates policies to meet regulations

Tilney Investment Management says technology has reduced cost of policy management by 95 per cent

A leading independent wealth management firm has automated its corporate policy management to tackle the increasing rigours of regulatory compliance in the UK financial sector.

Tilney Investment Management has implemented PolicyMatter, an independent policy enforcement solution that ensures staff have read, understood and signed up to, key company policies.

Some policies only apply to specific groups of employees, such as those relating to Financial Services Authority (FSA) regulations for fund managers. Others, like IT security and Internet use, are relevant to all 350 of the firm’s staff.

'Everybody's affected by some regulatory requirement somewhere along the line,' said Simon Chesterton, Tilney’s IT service delivery manager.

Chesterton estimates the system, recommended to the company by solutions provider Network Defence, has reduced the cost and time of policy management by 95 per cent, and says it is very easy to use.

'You just cut and paste a policy into PolicyMatter and break it down into subject headings if you want. The next time staff log into their PC they're prompted to read the policy and click a button to confirm they understand and will adhere to it,' he said.

'If you need to change a policy the system can just highlight a particular amended paragraph to staff and if necessary show it in context,' he added.

The software can also be configured to pose questions automatically to ensure staff have understood a particular policy, directing them to re-read areas they have not grasped or notifying an administrator where more training is needed.

Chesterton says Tilney is not currently using this capability, but may do so in future.

The system currently manages 12 corporate policies, eight of which apply to all staff. Chesterton said: 'We didn't want to overwhelm people with 50 policies on the first day. We've started small and we're growing the system gradually.'

'Next, we'll be putting on a new version of our IT policy, updated to take account of new technology like iPods. Every day it seems something else comes out that you can plug into a PC and use to smuggle out the company’s information,' he said.

What do you think? Email us at [email protected]