Difficult economic times don’t stop this consultancy firm

Edinburgh, August 2011 — With rumblings of doom and gloom in the business world, CEI Compliance Limited (http://www.cei-compliance-limited.co.uk) is a breath of fresh air. The South Coast based firm is intent on investing time and effort into business development in Scotland over the next year.

Founder Lee Werrell hopes that other financial services firms will follow in its footsteps. It’s a tough act to follow. In the last two years alone, CEI Compliance has completed many projects from online retailers through to FTSE 100 companies.

“Scotland was built by entrepreneurs,” said Werrell, “and our financial service companies have all but turned their backs on Scotland in their time of need. CEI Compliance Limited will strive to achieve its goal of a £2 million capital infusion into the economy.”

An entrepreneur at heart, Werrell speaks from experience. He has owned and operated many companies over the years. “I understand the clients’ perspective and where they are coming from,” he says.

Werrell says CEI Compliance is aggressively looking for investment houses, banks and insurers with regulatory projects – in the Middle East, EU and UK – focussing on compliance and risk, but also assisting in Strategy Planning and other elements of financial inclusion. Werrell explains: “We utilise a broad range of specialists as wella s generalists, who often white label for the bigger consultancies. Our secret is that we offer specific additional value at a fraction of the price.”

“Our goal is to form partnerships where both parties benefit,” continues Werrell. “We want to build long-lasting relationships with reducing dependency, with our clients. Another important goal for us is to build our philanthropic work. We are pledging 5 percent of yearly profits to charities such as “Help For Heroes”.

A former serviceman himself, Werrell appreciates the sacrifice that servicemen and women make for their country on a daily basis. He always insists that the poppies he buys each year are not for the dead, but for those still living with the hell inside their own memories. His business is driven by principles as well. “CEI Compliance Limited was founded on integrity, honesty and fairness. That is the basis of every project we undertake, and it guides us on a daily basis, both in our business and our other aspects of our lives.”

For more information, visit http://www.cei-compliance-limited.co.uk, email info@ceicompliance.co.uk or call 0800 689 9 689.

 About CEI Compliance Limited

CEI Compliance Limited, is the leading alternative regulatory compliance consultancy. Leveraging on specialist from all disciplines of regulatory compliance and risk, CEI can supply the right people at the righ time. CEI Compliance Limited is a member of the Association Of Professional Compliance Consultants(APCC) which is the only compliance trade body recognised as such by the Financial Services Authority

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has fined Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and National Westminster Bank (NatWest) £2.8m for multiple failings in the way they handled customers’ complaints, responding inadequately to more than half the complaints reviewed by the FSA.

See the original post here:
FSA fines RBS and NatWest £2.8m for poor complaint handling

CEI Compliance has a new FREEFONE number in the UK.

CEI Launched their new FREEFONE Number today – 0800 689 9 689

New Freefone Number

Call them today to discuss your compliance support needs

Financial Services complaints to the FOS (Financial Ombudsman Service) has risen in the first half of the year by receiving 84,212 complaints.

Of the new complaints over half were for the 5 major banks with Lloyds TSB topping the table with 12,750 new complaints from its customers.

In the first 6 months of 2010 the FOS has upheld significantly less cases (44%) compared to the last half of 2009 (53%) and the rise has totalled nearly 2,100 extra cases.

For the analysts amongst you, 89% of new cases refer to only 160 specific financial businesses.

Compliance Consultants within the UK are in extremely short supply. Whilst banks and insurance companies install and augment their regulatory obligations, such as Solvency II, they have pulled in all the expertise from what was a bouyant marketplace.

Daily rates for freelance consultants have skyrocketed as all the quality and efficient consultants have been locked into medium to long term contracts on quality projects, that recruiters are now trying increased rates to lurethem into breaking their contracts, something any consultant with a long term view would never do, as the marketplace is small and word gets around.

Niche Consultancies are struggling to find quality consultants for the ad-hoc projects that are arising more and more frequently, such as remedial actions, enforcement actions and FSMA S166 Skilled Persons Reports. CEI Consultancy has a reliable bank of experienced and qualified consultants but is always looking for more as the value for money projects we tender for are snapped up, over and above the more expensive “practices” that have to charge for a small army of consultants, many whom never even see the client or their premises.

If you are a qualified or experienced Compliance Consultant, especially in sales training or S166 reports as well as other specialisms, please contact us at consultant@ceicompliance.co.uk .

If you are on notice of a regulatory visit in the near future, you may need to prepare thoroughly so that the visit goes smoothly. Most firms need help in preparation but you can find some ideas on our page http://www.cei-compliance-limited.co.uk/regulatory-visits.html

You can also get a TCF guide and idea checksheet by sending a blank email to tcfguide@cei-compliance-limited.co.uk

good Luck!

In 2008/2009 there were 56 Section 166 Reports completed costing a total of £12,800,000. Compare this to 2005/2006 when 17 reports were completed at a total cost of £3,700,000 and you will see the average case has escalated in cost, mainly due to the big consultancies charging into the area with their large teams of analysts and managers.

In 2008/2009 the largest single cost case totalled £2,400,000 which leaves the average of the other 55 cases being over £189,000 each. The good news is the cheapest cost was for a one man band at £3,000.

The areas covered in the latest year’s S166 reports were Client Money, Corporate Governance, Past Business Reviews, TCF, Systems and Controls, Capital adequacy, Regulatory Reporting and Market Abuse.

The FSA are increasingly using this tool and you could be spending more money than you need to. Call CEI for a quote on 07092 289901 or visit www.s166.co.uk for more information. CEI – Providing Regulatory Help When You Need It.

 Money Marketing article here

The FSA says its review looked at several banking groups responsible for over 70 per cent of the complaints firms receive and report to the regulator and over 60 per cent of those resolved by the Financial Ombudsman Service.

The latest FOS complaints figures, published in February, showed a big increase in the number of new complaints received against the large banking groups.  Lloyds received 20,190 complaints across all its brands while Barclays received 10,892 and RBS received 7098 complaints. Seven hundred new Barclays Bank complaints related to investments, the highest number of investment complaints received by any institution.

As a result of the FSA review, five banks have either put in place or extended the scope of major changes to their complaint handling processes.The regulator will be doing follow up work later this year to see if standards have improved and may change elements of its DISP rulebook, which will be consulted on later this year.

CEI Compliance have produced and published a Free Guide to help SMEs answer your Treating Customers Fairly responsibilities. Unlike many “guides”, instead of questions that appear to have no direct reference to the outcomes you have to address, this one has example action points and sample responses for the firms to amend for their own use.  More to the point, it is provided absolutely free for a limited period!

 With our FREE TCF GUIDE you get over 25 pages of example factors to demonstrate, reference to FSA manual and where details can be found in your own documentation. Further to this, and unique (as far as we know) to CEI Compliance are example action points and potential weak areas and then we give sample answers and statements as well as a reference to the TCF Outcome concerned, which means that it helps you declare how you have embedded TCF in your company.

To get your hands on this time limited offer – please go here – http://www.cei-compliance-limited.co.uk/Free%20TCF%20Guide.html or copy and paste into your browser.

Hurry! We are going to pull the plug very soon!