Great British Scaleup: Worksmart

This is the third in a series of short profiles of the companies featured in our fifth Great British Scaleup event held earlier this month. Profiles of the other companies will be published over the next few days.

Worksmart is a Great British Scaleup helping Financial Service firms cope with regulatory change. Originally set up in 1997 and now run by MD Andy Nightingale, Milton Keynes-based Worksmart cut its teeth providing UK financial services organisations with bespoke customisations of its software to support regulatory changes from Training and Competence (T&C), to Quality Assurance through to Complaints Management.

As FCA fines have increased, regulatory change has moved further up the boardroom agenda with new regulatory requirements such as MIFID II and the Senior Managers and Certification Regime (SM&CR) further strengthening the need for evidencing competence.

As SM&CR replaces the previous Approved Persons Regime the market potential for Worksmart has increased. SM&CR already applies to UK banks and building societies and will soon be extended to the broader UK financial services sector including Insurers, Investment firms and Consumer Credit over the next 18 months thereby greatly increasing the number firms impacted.

SM&CR ensures that senior managers are individually accountable for their business decisions, their conduct and the competence of those that they manage. What that means for financial service firms is that they must have clear systems and controls in place to meet the relevant regulations and this is where Worksmart comes in with its SM&CR product Accord.

Accord is a brand-new development which complements Worksmart’s existing Foundation platform and provides a configurable SaaS-based tool to cater for a wider customer base and offer central record keeping, corporate governance, accountability and evidence of employee fitness and propriety all in one place.

The widening of SM&CR to Insurance and Consumer Credit provides Worksmart with a window of opportunity that it’s determined to take advantage of.

Posted by Marc Hardwick at '07:16' - Tagged: regulation   GreatBritishScaleup