GCC compliance team understands the importance and complexity of license application for being licensed with regulators. We assist our clients and handles different licence applications, including SFC licences for 10 types of regulated activities in Hong Kong, Insurance Brokerage Businesses, Money Lenders and Fund Management Businesses in Singapore (MAS) and Australia (ASIC), Trust or Corporate Services Providers (TCSP) in Hong Kong, Trading Participant(s) application with HKEx, etc. Our services include:
- Compliance advisory during the application process;
- Provisions of advice for business plan and corporate structure and advice on the key areas that regulatory authorities take into consideration when granting licenses;
- Provision of advice for requirements for responsible / key people and assisting the applicant with identifying qualified human capital;
- Preparation and handling of licensing application, including addressing all matters and queries raised by regulators during the application;
- Preparation of compliance policies and procedures for the purpose of application;
- Act as the main contact between regulators and clients; and
- Negotiation of licensing condition and notify regulators for all relevant changes, if any, during the application process.
Financial authorities continue to enhance the regulatory scrutiny to govern the financial institutions. Drawn from leading financial institutions, regulators and authorities GCC guides our clients to develop, to assist and to implement their compliance programs that are in line with the regulatory requirements, and to ensure they obtain the best available information in relation to the increasingly complex compliance rules and regulations. GCC provides tailored advice and ongoing support to our clients seamlessly and ensuring the solutions are innovative and cost-effective. Our ongoing compliance and advisory supports include:
- Provisions of compliance consultation;
- Execution of regular site visit in preforming compliance testing;
- Provision of review and advice on the update of the compliance policies and procedures from time to time to match the up-to-date regulatory requirements;
- Facilitation of interactions with regulators;
- Preparation for the regulator reports from time to time;
- Provisions of requirements for licensing notification and fulfilment of other regulatory obligations; and
- Provisions of risk assessments of corporate operations.
Know Your Customer (KYC) is an essential practice to protect financial institutions from fraud and losses resulting from money-laundering, illegal frauds and suspicious transactions. KYC is forming part of the Anti-Money Laundering (AML) procedures and it refers to procedures the financial institutions adopt to establish customer identity and to understand the nature of customer’s business activities, in order to assess the money laundering risks associated with the customers. Leverage our specialists’ extensive experience in the financial institutions, GCC AML & KYC solutions assist our clients with:
- Provisions of review and advice on KYC /AML policies and procedures;
- Update of KYC / AML rules from time to time;
- Customer on-boarding process;
- Review on ongoing client’s customer account relationship;
- Evaluation of client’s independence AML oversight capability;
- Evaluation of the effectiveness, shortfalls, and high-risk areas of client’s existing AML approach; and
- Regular training on AML and KYC.
With our extensive knowledge about the market and the complex regulatory environment, we provide compliance training and a sophisticated knowledge hub that provides an open innovation approach for the purpose of bringing together clients with deep understanding of compliance knowledge, both online and offline, to ensure staff members stay alerted and informed about the regulatory changes.
Our training includes:
- Facilitation, through in developing a comprehensive compliance management system for internal use;
- CPT Compliance training for management level and personnel who are interested in the field of compliance and regulation;
- AML and KYC training;
- Training in relation to preparation for regulatory inspection;
- Training for provisions of new product, new services or new business proposals from a regulatory perspective; and
- Ad hoc compliance training.
